^•'^. 



VX'o 



^ 



^0 4^ ^"'^i^^^. <x,^ c\ 








I- ^V *Sil©" ^ ^ *(<^ 
• cS^aK^*.*^. O 




















'^o^ 



JPBESS NOTICES. 



That the public may see the estimate in which this work 
is held, the Publisher has collected the following no- 
tices of the first edition : 

Washington Post. 
"AiTSWERSTO Ikgersoll.— A Virginia layman takes is- 
sue with the ' Great Infidel.' A majority of the replies to In- 
gersoll are of a character to make us wish that the writer 
had not undertaken the task. This cannot be honestly said 
of Mr. Magruder's book. * * He seems possessed of 
a quick insight into the weak points of his opponent, and 
knows how to present them to the best advantage. * * 
Not the least interesting chapter in the book is the argument 
that eternal punishment is not eternal pain, etc. * * 

Mr. Magruder presents his case in a strong hght." 

Laurinhurgh [N.C.) Enterprise. 
"We have received from the publishers the 'Eeply to Kob- 
ert G. Ingersoll's Lectures ' against the Bible, written by Al- 
lan B. Magruder, a lawyer of ability and a gentleman who has 
diligently searched the Scriptures. ' His defense is able, and 
his hits at the great infidel are calculated to make him v^nce, 
if not to confess the transparency of the doctrine which he 
proclaims against the Bible and its precepts. Ingersoll is a 
smart man and ergo a dangerous one, but he has met a foeman 
in Mr. Magruder worthy of his steel.' " 

Lenoir [N. C.) Topic. 
"We have just received the ' Keply to Eobert J. Ingersoll's 
Lectmes,' by Allan B. Magruder, which is a full exposition 
of Ingersoll's inconsistencies and ignorance of the Bible as 



PRESS NOTICES. 

T 

well as a beautiful and convincing argument for the truth of 
the Bible teachings. It should not only be in the hand of the 
minister, but in that of every Bible reader." 

WadesboToP [N. C.) Times. 
*' We have received from the Publishers a book, entitled 
'Keply to Robert G. Ingersoll's Lectures,' by Allan B. Ma- 
gruder. We deprecate any attempt at a reply to such a blas- 
phemous infidel, and believe all efforts of the kind but tend 
to advertise and cause to be read his atheistical teachings. 
The book is very neatly gotten up, and the author says, ' It is 
to defend the Bible as the Word of God and an authentic Di- 
vine revelation to man that these pages are written.' * 
* No apology is needed to those who reverence the 
Bible as the Word of God, for this attempt to defend that 
Word and to confute the sophistry of one whose life is spent 
in laborious efforts to impeach and villify the Divine oracles." 

Advent Advocate {Iowa), 
" Since receiving Mr. Magruder's book we have not had time 
to read it, but we like it very much as we read its introduc- 
tion and first chapter, and we doubt not that the work will 
find a ready reception with the people as a defense of the Bi- 
ble from this bold attack of infidelity. As the author takes 
the Bible view of the nature and destiny of man the answer 
to Ingersoll is the more valuable." 

CJiarlotte [JSf. C.) Democrat. 
" * * It is a reply to Bob Ingersoll's infidel lectures, 
and should be in the hands of all, especially those who have 
paid any attention to Ingersoll's blasphemous talk aud wiit- 
ings. Ask for the book at the city book stores." 

Christian Chiliast [JDel.]. 
"It is a strong defense of our Bible, and an able attack on 
the fortress of infidelity. The author has rebuked atheism 
with peculiar force and true logic, exposing the effrontery and 
supreme ignorance of Ingersoll respecting a book the divinity 
of which skeptics cannot disannul and apostacy cannot ob- 



PRESS NOTIOBg, 

scure. Of the numerous replies to this atheist we believe this 
one the best, as the author is in the position enabling him to 
take the infidel bull by the horns and back him to the wall 
and over. There is no cringing at the scathing shafts which 
IngersoU hurls against false creeds— the Book stands on its 
own merits, and not on the fables of paganism— and our au- 
thor not only maintains the Bible as a God-given guide to di- 
rect man into the path of life, but scrip turally shows that ev- 
erlasting conscious tormeni is not a teaching of the blessed 
Book. We would be glad to have all our readers obtain a 
copy of this defense of truth. The author has, in this work, 
made a valuable contribution to a Christian's library, and his 
clear and successful defense, coupled with an aggressive ad- 
vance and truthful exhibition of the sublime doctrine of life 
only in Christ, will place his work in high estimation." 

Winchester ( Va.) Times. 
*' In this able vindication of the claims of the Bible, Mr. 
Magruder has achieved with the pen as complete a victory over 
the bold blasphemer, IngersoU, as he would have done in pub- 
lic discussion, had not the latter discreetly declined the con- 
troversy." 

Bihle Standard [England\. 

" In a former issue we drew attention to the response made 
by Mr. Magruder to the bold challenge of Col. E. IngersoU, a 
noted American infidel lecturer. As Mr. Magruder's accept- 
ance of the challenge was not heeded, " The Bible Defended 
and Atheism Rebuked " was issued from the press, and we 
are glad to hear that it has met with a good sale in the States. 
The author writes in a good spirit, but hits hard, and cleverly 
exposes the many weak places in his opponent's armor. But 
for the pressure on our space we should quote from the work, 
but must be content with a brief line of praise." 

The Bestitution [Ind.] 
" We find the f olio wing notice of Brother Magruder's book 
in the November number of the Messenger, published at Glas- 
gow, Scotland. The notice of the work is very favorable, but 



PRESS NOTICES. 

by no means unmerited : ' Brother A. B. Magruder, of Ste- 
phens City, U. S., has just published an excellent treatise in 
reply to the American champion of unbelief— IngersoU— 
which will repay perusal. He wisely protests against the 
habit which IngersoU has of confounding Scripture doctrine 
with human systems of theology; and takes occasion, while 
pointing out the infidel's blunders, to set forth clearly the true 
Scripture doctrine on immortality and the kingdom of God.' " 

The Churchman. [Episcopal.] 
" In this volume Mr. Magruder, a lawyer of Virginia, who 
vainly challenged Mr. IngersoU to a public discussion, enters 
into an examination of his printed lectures. iN'o man lays 
himself more open to refutation than Mr. IngersoU ; he halts 
on both feet in his facts and in his arguments, and we need 
not say that Mr. Magruder's task was as easy as his work was 
effective. Coming from a lawyer, and looking at matters from 
the stand-point of a layman, his work will be read where, per- 
haps, the clergyman could gain no hearing, and it will be use- 
ful to those who are carried away by Mr. IngersoU's rollick- 
ing rhetoric and are likely to lose their bearings. It seems 
incredible, but it is doubtless true, that there are many who 
are weak enough to be influenced by the infidel's loud asser- 
tions, and to such, if they are willing to hear the other side, 
Mr. Magruder's book and Judge Black's argument may be of 
service." 

Our Best and Signs of the Times [Chicago]. 
" This is a well-written book, and exposes the twaddle of 
IngersoU in a marked manner. The author is not evangelical 
in his views concerning the nature of man, but beUeves in his 
present mortal condition, subject to a change to immortality 
by his resurrection at Christ's coming. isTeither does he en- 
dorse the doctrine of eternal hell torment, believing that it is 
not taught in the Scriptures. The author accepted IngersoU's 
challenge for discussion, but when the braggart saw that he 
was confronted by one who meant what he said, he ignomim 
ously retreated, like the skulking coward that he is. He dare 



i 



PKESS NOTICES. 

not mount the rostrum and fight this battle with one who has 
the courage and ability to defend the authenticity of the 
Scriptures. That has been proven." 

Sabhath Advocate. [Marion, la.^Advent.'] 
"Eeplt to Ingersoll.— 'The Bible Defended and Athe- 
ism Kebuked,' by Allan B. Magruder, is received from the 
Publishers. This pamphlet of 142 pages is a Reply to Robert 
G. Ingersoll's Lectures against the Bible, on the 'Mistakes of 
Moses,' 'Skulls,' 'What must I Do to Be Saved ?' and other 
defamations of the Bible. Since receiving the book we have 
not had time to read it, but we like it very much as we read 
its introduction and first chapter, and we doubt not that the 
work will find a ready reception with the people as a defense 
of the Bible from this bold attack of infidelity. As the 
author takes the Bible view of the nature and destiny of 
man, the answer is the more valuable." 

. Philadelpliia Enquirer. 
"E. J. Hale & Son, !N"ew York, have published a thick pam- 
phet, by Allan B. Magruder, containing "A Reply to Inger- 
soll's Lectures," in which the flippant arguments and fre- 
quent misrepresentations of the eloquent but unscrupulous 
infidel are handled with much skill." 

Winchester News. [Va.] 
"^ Beply to IngersolL—y^Q have been favored by the Pub- 
lisher with a copy of Mr. A. B. Magruder's reply to Col. R. 
G. Ingersoll's lectures attacking the Bible. It is a very neatly 
printed volume. We have not read the entire book, but from 
what we have seen of it we think that Mr. Magruder treats 
his subject. with much system and ability. He is "very cun- 
ning of fence," and shows conclusively that Col. IngersoU 
has found a foeman worthy of his steel. There are proofs 
everywhere in the reply that Mr. Magruder has made the 
Bible a deep study." 

New Ycyrk Herald. 
"The Bible Defended and Atheism Rebuked."— This is the 



OPINIONS, ETC. 

title of a pamphlet sent us by the pnblishers, from the pen 
of Allan B. Magmder, Laymen and Bible Student, and is in- 
tended as a reply to some of the lectures of Mr. Kobert J. 
Ingersoll. Mr. Magruder knows his Bible well, and makes 
good use of his knowledge. The pamphlet will be useful." 



OPINIONS OF EMINENT CITIZENS, MINISTEBS, 
SCHOLARS, ETC., ETC, 



Besides these notices of the public press, the author 
received numerous commendations of thework from emi- 
nent citizens, embracing lawyers, judges, doctors, and 
scholars, college presidents and professors, and from min- 
isters and clergymen of various denominations, many of 
whom were unknown to him. As these were contained 
generally in private letters, he did not feel at liberty, 
without special authority, to make them public with their 
names attached, helpful as it would be to the sale of the 
work. But the Publisher feels that there is no violation 
of confidence in quoting these favorable opinions of the 
work, suppressing the names, etc., of the writers. The 
following presents some of the testimonials taken from 
the originals : 

" The book is an opportune and able utterance." 

"I congratulate you on the success and perfection of 

your work." 

" * * * * I cannot close this letter without ex- 
pressing the opinion that there is nothing in Junius equal to 
your pen portrait of Ingersoll, and, were I competent to crit- 
icism of your whole reply, it would be in the main commend- 
atory." 



OriNIONS, ETC. 

"I believe, if generally read, it would be productive of 
much good. Mr. IngersolPs main props are clearly taken 
from under him by shoT\'lng, in a lucid manner, the true teach- 
ing of the Bible. * * i feel confident, if he is an hon- 
est man and can conquer his pride he will acknowledge himself 
convinced. But I fear the ' if' is in the way. * * The 
reply is well written, points strongly taken, and the argu- 
ments forcible and conclusive." 

"I have read the book through. I expected something 
good and am not disappointed. * * j only wish all 
intelhgent people could see and read it. I have ordered forty 
copies of the work from the Publishers." 

" I have read your answer with no little care and atten- 
tion, and I can add that I think, without doubt, you have 
made a very able argument, and have fully refuted the sophis- 
try (to call it by no harsher name) Of Mr Ingersoll." 

** I regard your reply to Ingersoll as highly creditable to 
your head and heart. I admire it for its intellectual force 
and for its zeal, and I do not say that I agree with you as to 
some secondary points, but yom' pamphlet, as an argument in 
behalf of Christianity, is, in my opinion, an able and effectual 
review of the blasphemous teachings of your opponent. I 
hear that Judge has complimented your book." 

" I hear a new edition of your Eeplyto Ingersoll will be 
issued. This accords with the wish or my heart. We need 
such a work at the present time, when Infidelity is assuming 
a bold and defiant attitude toward the Bible and Christianity. 
It should be put into the hands of all persons who can be in- 
duced to read, especially of the young men of our country, 
many of whom seem to be abandoning the old Book on the 
flimsy pretext that, it is a crude human production of an un- 
enlightened and superstitious age." 

" I should be most happy, if I had the means, to place 
the Reply to Ingersoll in the hands of every intelligent man in 
the land. If you had failed to point out the true way and con- 
fined yourself simply to refuting IngersolPs absurd charges, 
your book would have lost halt its value. Ingersoll rejects 
the Bible, but offers nothing instead. You have sustained the 
divinity of the Bible, and through it pointed out the way to 
future life and salvation." 

" I have just read your Eeply to Ingersoll. It interested 
and greatly gratified me. A short time since a friend sent me 



OPINIONS, ETC. 

his book on a somewhat kindred subject ; and just before 
yours. I read the discussion in the North American Beview^ 
between Ingersoll and Black. Permit me to say that while 
my esteemed friend, in my opinion, missed the mark widely, 
and the Pennsylvania lawyer came only a little closer, you 
have hit it in the white. For several years it has been my firmly 
fixed belief that contingent immortality is the clearly revealed 
doctrine of Scripture. * * The sympathy of views on 
that great subject prompts this expression of it to you, and I 
trust will be regarded as a sufficient apology from an entire 
stranger." 

" I have just read, with great interest and with general 
satisfaction, your reply to Mr. Ingersoll, entitled, ' The Bible 
Defended and Atheism Rebuked.' " 

"I have very sincerely to thank you for your thought- 
ful kindness in sending me a copy of your reply to IngersoU's 
lectures. His lectures are mainly made up of sneers, sar- 
casms, inuendos, and against such ad captandum flings, it is 
difficult to argue, because they address a lower part of our 
nature than the reason and the conscience ; but as far as any 
argumentation of his can be made to revolve in the sphere of 
logic, you have shovtTi that it is untenable, and, in so doing, 
have deserved the thanks of the Ch3?istian public." 

"I have read it vdth pleasure and satisfaction as a logical 
and thorough exposure of IngersoU's fallacies, and have 
started it on its mission of enlightenment to others who are 
awaiting the opportunity of reading it." 

"I have read the book with great interest. I am pleased, 
and somewhat surprised, to find your views so nearly in ac- 
cord with my owai, as set forth in various publications. Per- 
haps you have seen some of them, but not my last work just 
HOW being published. I venture to send it to you by this 
mail, because I think you will be glad to have it, etc. * 
* * I hope your work will have a large circulation. I 
shaU take pleasure in commending it to others." 

"I have just given your book its first reading, and will say 
that my expectations have been more than realized, for I re- 
gard the work as the most triumphant vindication of the 
Word of God that has yet appeared. The great beauty of 
your defense is that the Book stands upon its oiun merits. IIow 
my heart has been pained at the miserable apologies that have 
been made by some of the clergy, [See attempted rephes to 
Ingersol by Chicago ministers.] for the Bible, which serve 
only, in general, to succor the infidePs efforts against the 
truth. * * * rj.^^^ y^^^j. noble effort may be 

the means of confirming many in the truth, is my humble 
prayer." 



THE BIBLE DEFENDED AND ATHEISM REBUKED. 



REPLY 

TO 

Robert G.Ingersoll's Lectures, 

"MISTAKES OF MOSES," "SKULLS, " ETC. 
« fVNA T MUST WE DO TO BE SA VED?" ETC. 




Allan B. Magruder, 



Layman and Bible Student, 



0^., 



SECOND EDITION, 

Witlfi Supplemtint and Strictures on the Ingersoll-Blaek Discussion^ 
Shewing the Bible Doctrine of 



1 



S^ LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 



'May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest, is' 
For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears; we would 

KNOW therefore WHAT THESE THINGS MEAN." — Acts XvU, 20. 



CHICAGO: 
C. H. JONES, Publisher. 

1882. • 

Copyright SecureJ. 







Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the 
office of the Librarian of Congress by 

ALLAN B. MAGRUDER. 

In July of the year of our Lord, 1882. 



DEDICATION. 



To the obedient Believers of the "Gospel of the King- 
dom of God," (Mark i, 14 ; Luke ix, 2-6 ; Rom. xvi, 25, 
26,) and to all of good and honest hearts, of every 
creed and of no creed, who sincerely desire to know 
the truth as it is in Jesus, and the more excellent 
way of the faith once delivered to the Saints, and 
who may have the courage to follow their convictions, 
although these may lead them to forsake the devious 
and treacherous paths of human wisdom and author- 
ity in religion, this defense of the Bible against the 
infidel assailant is earnestly inscribed by their friend 
and ally, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 



It is to defend the Bible as the Word of God and an 
authentic Divine Revelation to man that these pages 
are written. 

I do not attempt to maintain or vindicate the creeds 
and systems of Catholic or Protestant Christendom. 
That issue is not now before us. 

It is proposed, in this work, to keep a single object 
in view, which is the truth of Cod's word and the vin- 
dication, as therein declared, of Cod's ways to man. 

It has been well said that a good cause is more apt to 
be injured by an injudicious defence of it by its' friends 
than by the most violent attack of its enemies. Hence 
the danger of attempting too much. I prefer to deal 
with one subject at a time. This precaution is the 
more necessary in this instance, because the aurthor of 
the lectures to which I am replying has very adroitly 
assailed the Bible by attempting to hold it responsible 
for the real or supposed sins and follies of the people 
and churches who profess to follow it. N'othing can be 
more unmanly and unfair. It is an attempt to mix the 
tares with the wheat, the dross with the gold, and then 
complacently to point to the debased compound as not 
the true metal. 

The Bible religion has been altogether Divine from 



Vi 



the beginningo From its glimmering light in the Garden 
of Eden and in the Patriarchal age, through its brighter 
radiance in the Law and the Prophets, to its present 
morning-star beams in the *' times of the Gentiles/' and 
onward to its full effulgence in the light and meridian 
glory of the approaching kingdom and reign of Christ on 
earth as the Sun of Righteousness, the Gospel has been 
of God, not man ; not human, but Divine. It has never 
shone with borrowed light. It is self-illuminating. Its 
watchword is: "Not Rome, but Jerusalem; not So- 
crates, • but Moses ; not Plato, but Paul ; not C^sar, 
but Christ." 

St. Paul, one of its inspired teachers, styles himself 
" an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus 
Christ and God the Father who raised Him from thj 
dead," and addressing his Galatian brethren he adds : 
" I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was 
preached of me is not after man, for I neither received 
it of man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation 
of Jesus Christ." It is so yet. Now a Divine message 
must be couched in Divine words. Hence the wise ad- 
monition : ''To the law and to the testimony. If they 
speak not according to this word it is because there is 
no light in them." 

" If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of 
God." 

To speak thus is to confine us to a " Thus saith the 
Lord, and thus it is written." 

This must prove my apology, if one be necessary, for 
restricting this reply to an humble bat firm and un- 



Vll 



daunted defence of God's Word, which embodies that 
supreme wisdom and authority to which all Christians 
bow with profound reverence. 

No apology is needed to those who reverence the 
Bible as the Word of God, for this attempt to defend 
that Word and to confute the sophistry of one whose 
life is spent in laborious efforts to impeach and vilify 
the Divine oracles. Of the entire sympathy of such there 
is no reason to doubt. Those who have not adopted 
as yet that Holy Book as the Divine guide of life, 
bat who value the safety and happiness of mankind, we 
point to the public avowal by Mr. Ingersoll of his 
" sympathy" with Socialists and Nihilists who would 
subvert all law and order and convulse the world by 
wholesale murder and crime, In this connection 
we refer them to his confession, " My sympathies cluster 
around the point of the dagger, '^^ etc., as collated in the 
following pages. 

Shall we not endeavor to nip, in the bud, such per- 
nicious sentiments, and, by concentrating public opin- 
ion, arrest their inculcation in our now peaceful and 
happy country ? Let all who honor marriage and re- 
spect the sacred duties and obligations of domestic and 
social life arouse themselves, and stand up with united 
front as one man against these betrayers and destroyers 
of all that we hold dear. 

In moral as in physical life it is the first step that 
costs. Errors and vices are gregarious. They love 
company, and need mutual support to give them 
countenance. Communism, Socialism, Nihilism, all 



Vlll 



gravitate to a common centre, wliich is Atheism ; and 
as that is the sum of all crimes, it is alike our interest, 
our duty and our only safety as a people to oppose and 
arrest the beginnings of evil. 
Stephens City, Virginia. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 



The kindly and earnest welcome with which this little 
work has been received by the public, and by his Breth- 
ren of the Household of Faith, induces the author to 
publish a second edition. 

Within a few months after its issue, the edition of one 
thousand copies was exhausted, and a further demand has 
come to us since, which can only be met by an additional 
supply. 

It is gratifying to know that the work has attracted the 
attention of the reading public and of the press ; of schol- 
ars and students, both lay and clerical, and of many 
earnest learners and honest thinkers, and enquirers as 
well. As the writer makes no claim to reputation 
in authorship, and as there is no attempt at fine writing 
in its preparation, it is fair to infer that this demand 
for another edition is the result of the interest and value 
of the theme, and is not due to the inconsiderable advo- 
cate. This is not surprising, since no subject can surpass 
in interest and importance to every reflecting mind the 
great question of our future destiny when the present 
fleeting life is over — a question which directly involves 



X PREFACE TO THB 

the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures as the very 
corner-stone of our holy religion, where alone we have 
any certain assurance of future life. Surely if "there 
is none other name under Heaven, given among men, 
whereby we must be saved, except the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth," (Acts iv.), all men must be deeply 
concerned in the issue joined in such a discussion, and 
we cannot easily over-estimate its momentous import. 

There is another reason which has doubtless conspired 
with other causes to produce this demand for full discus- 
sion of the questions involved. It is the spirit of the age. 
The present generation of men in our country, and among 
all English speaking people, is more and more alive to the 
inestimable value of freedom of speech, freedom of the 
press, and freedom of inquiry and discussion in respect to' 
what is true and real on all subjects and sciences which 
affect our welfare and happiness as sentient, rational and 
responsible beings. With all thoughtful minds, the 
sentiment of religious faith and the necessity of its be- 
ing well-founded form no exception to this well nigh 
universal uprising of the human soul for more light 
and better knowledge. Far from having any reason 
to dread or deprecate this awakened spirit of inves- 
tigation, this earnest grappling with the profoundest 
problems and the deepest mysteries of humanity, the 
enlightened Christian w^comes and even rejoices in it, 
for he knows that this determined spirit of inquiry, 
wisely directed and pursued, must lead to good results. 
To pursue the opposite path — "to let alone that which is 
quiet," — ^is doubtless a sound maxim for a corrupt cause. 



SEOONB EDITION. XI 

yet such is the usual course with "the wise and prudent" 
of every generation, and verily they have their reward in 
the apoplectic slumber which precedes dissolution. The 
faithful servant of the Master has not so learned Christ. 
He is taught to "prove all things and to hold fast that 
which is good" — to "believe not every spirit, but try 
the spirits whether they are of God" — to "contend 
earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," be- 
ing assured, "if you continue in my word yoa shall 
be my disciples, indeed, and you shall know the truth 
and the truth shall make you free," * * * 

* * and "If the Son therefore shall make you 

free, you shall be frpe indeed." 

Every intelligent reader of the Holy Oracles should 
know that nothing in the sight of their great Author is of 
more insignificant value than an implicit, unreasoning 
faith which emasculates our noblest mental faculties and 
prostrates our whole moral nature at the shrine of a blind 
credulity. 

Recognizing, as every rational man must, that the world 
we live in must have a Master as well as a Maker, a 
Ruler as well as a Creator, and that that Maker would 
assuredly speak to and commune with the man whom he 
placed at the head of it, and that that communication, to 
be permanently accessible to the race that lives upon it, 
must be contained in a book placed in his hands, and 
which the wisest and most worthy of our race all agree to 
call the Bible, man is thus supplied with the key to un- 
lock the mysteries of his being and his abode, and to be 
''no longer faithless but believing." 



xu 



PRBFACE TO THE 



The reader will find in the Supplement appended a 
brief review of the IngersoU-Black discussion, which has 
appeared in the columns of the North American Review 
Whilst in warm sympathy with Judge Black, in his bold 
and earnest contention for the side he defends, and con- 
ceding to his answer the unquestioned merit of a cleai 
and able presentation of the subject from the premises he 
sets forth, the writer is constrained to regret that those 
premises logically involve the necessity of defending the 
tenability of the immortal soul and the eternal torment 
theories as Bible doctrines, which are mere Pagan inven- 
tions, interpolated into the orthodox creed, and en- 
tirely at war with the teachings of Holy Writ, thus pre- 
senting to his adversary the ready means and opportunity 
of a successful assault on his position, and with seeming 
detriment to the Sacred Oracles. 

It is in deference to what the writer considers a con- 
sistent defense of the faith once delivered to the saints, 
that he has ventured, he hopes without presumption or 
offense, to offer the friendly strictures which appear in 
the Supplement. 

I make no apology for the freedom and boldness with 
which I have assailed the crude theories of Pagan My- 
thology, such as the immortality of the soul, the eternal 
torment theory, and the kindred popular errors and fol- 
lies of the orthodox creeds of modern Christendom — now 
unhappily constituting the cherished faith of what is 
denominated Evangelical Christianity. The creeds of 
Christendom are fair subjects of corrective criticism and 
condemnation, aud he is a recreant soldier of the Cross 
who hesitates to attack and demolish them in the inter- 



SECOND EDITIOK. xiil 

ests of truth, and in the cause of humanity. But those 
who honestly accept them, because they are not better 
informed, and who think that any religion is better than 
none, are entitled, personally, to all possible respect and 
courtesy. We distinguish, therefore, between the false 
and pernicious creeds, and those who are led captive in 
error by them. Let not the reader suppose that our 
assaults upon the former are to be resented as if directed 
against the latter. 

The Author ventures to make one request of the 
reader — that is, that he will suspend his opinion and 
conclusions as to this work until he has carefully and 
candidly read it. It is so customary, even with otherwise 
considerate men, to judge and pronounce sentence pre- 
maturely, that this reasonable precaution becomes neces- 
sary. The wisest of men says: "He that answereth a 
matter before he heareth it — it is folly and shame unto 
him." Most readers will find the positions advanced and 
the arguments here adduced so unusual, so much opposed 
to the lessons they have learned, and tlie ideas they have 
imbibed from their infancy, as to be inclined to reject 
and repel them at once. But a little reflection sufhces to 
teach us that all truth, however firmly established now, 
was in a small minority and most strongly opposed at 
first. It had to win its way to popular confidence by 
hard and persistent effort. We only ask the benefit of 
the valuable lesson which «uch a fact teaches. 

The greatest foes to truth are prejudice and ignorance. 
Her best friends are free discussion and honest investi- 
gation. 

g-yjjPH^ifS City, Vhjgjwia, 



CONTENTS. 



PREFACE 5 

INTRODCJCTOtlY 9 

CHAPTER I. 
All Things are of God 18 

CHAPTER II. 
If any Man Speak, let him Speak as the Oracles of 
God 25 

CHAPTER III 
Yanity of Vanities 28 

CHAPTER IV. 
Mr. Ingersoll's Ignorance of the Bible 31 

CHAPTER V. 
Salvation by Faith 41 

CHAPTER VI. 
Pen-portrait of Mr. Ingersoll 52 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Bible in the Light of Reason and Revelation. . 61 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Bible proved by its Internal Evidence 77 



CONTENTS. XV 



CHAPTER IX. 
Mr. Ingersoll's Inconsistencies 84 

CHAPTER X. 
Morals of Atheism— Mr. iNGERSoiiL and the Nihilists. 90 

CHAPTER XI. 
Design of God in Creation .... 95 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Future Ruler of the Nations 100 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Bible Doctrine of Future Punishment 107 

Eternal Punishment not Eternal Pain 107 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Bible Doctrine of Life, Death, and Immortality. . 130 

CONCLUSION. 
CONTENTS OF SUPPLEMENT. 

IKGERSOLL-BlACK COKTKOVERSY. ItS FUTILITY 140 

RESUKIlECTIOIsr, ]^OT ImLEKEN-T, IMMORTALITY, Ol^LY 

Hope of Eutuiie Life 147 

Popular AND Church Errors as to Life, akd Death, 150 

Objections Answered 164 

Paganization of Christianity 171 

Modern Christianity the Predicted and Preva- 
lent Apostacy 189, 192, 29C 



xvi COiTTE:^^TS. 

The Gospel the Meaits of Eegaining Our Lost 

Life 192,198 

Early Church Creeds. 198, 209 

The Life Problem Discussed; By Professor Mlliot 
Coues, OF WashingtojST, of the j^ational Medical 

College, Etc., In His Lecture On ''Biogen''' 20) 

The Origin and Uses of Eyil Explained 222, 231 

Mr. Ingersoll's I!^ewly Discoyered Creed. His 
Charge Against the Bible of Polygasiy and 

SL AYERY DiSPRO YED 235 

Eyil of Multiplying Eeligious Sects 240 

The Present Age Begun at Jerusalem, and Will 
End There When the Lord Cojmes, (Luee L 30-34, 

ANDxxiv. 47. Isaiah xxiv. 23) 242 

Proclamation of the Coming Kjng 246 



INTRODUCTORY 



It is perhaps already known to the public that the 
writer of the following pages accepted, through the pub- 
lic press, Mr. Robert G. Ingersoll's oft-repeated chal- 
lenge to believers in the religion of Christ to an open 
discussion and defence of the claims of the Bible to be 
a Divine revelation to man. 

I was led to this step of confronting this bold in- 
fidel by a sense of duty and of loyal devotion to the 
cause of divine truth, with which, in my humble 
judgment, the happiness and the highest interests of hu- 
manity are inseparably connected. I had reason to be- 
lieve, too, that the freedom and the impunity with which 
Mr. Ingersoll had been allowed to hurl his libellous 
shafts against God's word, unchecked by any fear of op- 
position and contradiction, was daily producing its natu- 
ral effect, especially on the young and on the ignorant 
and unthinking multitude, in an acquiescence, if not an 
admission of the truth of his utterances. I could not 
discern any reason why this plain duty to the cause of 
humanity should be declined by a private citizen and a 
layman and relegated to some one of the clerical class, 
seeing that the Bible was the common property and 
the precious legacy bequeathed to all classes alike by 
our common Father. I confess, too, that the defence of 



10, 



the Christian citadel thus rudely assaulted, could not be 
properly declined by one who had thus far through ma- 
ture life devoted himself as he has found time and op- 
portunity, without money and without price, to dis- 
seminating a knowledge of the great truths and precious 
promises of the Blessed Book. I felt that, as a layman 
and without any pecuniary or vested interests imperilled, 
I could with greater freedom from sectarian or party 
bias, discern the right and maintain the truth of God's 
Word in its entirety, and not in a half-hearted apology 
for the holy book with Avhich some have attempted 
the task. Accordingly, I wrote and caused to be pub- 
lished in the secular and religious newspapers my ac- 
ceptance of Mr. Ingersoll's challenge to a public, oral 
debate on the credibility and divine authenticity of the 
Holy Scriptures. This appears from the published 
cards which I here insert : 

[Fi^om the Restiiutio-n, Nov. 10, 1880.] 

COLONEL EOBEKT INGEKSOLL'S LECTUEES AGAINST 
THE BIBLE. 

HIS CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 

The press of the country trumpets for^ almost daily some note 
of the reckless audacity of Colonel Robert Ingersoll, in denounc- 
ing the Bible as false ; in which he speaks, it seems, not for him- 
self alone, but as the representative of a large class of Infidels in 
our country. He boldly assails the truth of the Bible and seeks 
by public lectures to bring the Holy Book into contempt and to 
undermine and subvert the faith and hope of the Christian. 

One of the leading journals of the day — the Philadelphia Weekly 
Times — in a recent issue gives expression to the current opinion 



11 



of a large number as to the proper method of dealing with the 
daring " blasphemer" in the following terms : 

" Twelve of the leading ministers of Chicago preached on Sun- 
day last in answer to Colonel Ingersoll' s recent lecture entitled, 
' What Shall I do to be Saved ?' They thus gave an importance to 
the blatant unbelief of Ingersoll that he could not have com- 
manded for either himself or his cause, and the eloquent blas- 
phemer will vanquish the eminent ministers all the time on the 
forum. He will not logically and conclusively refute their doc- 
trine, but he will sway the multitude and put the clergy at a disad- 
vantage. Colonel Ingersoll is not the most formidable antagonist 
of religion in our midst. He comes with his banner unfurled and 
with his shocking unbelief to put all thinkers on their guard ; but 
the subtle infidelity that is now diffused among our intelligent 
people is the most dangerous foe of Christianity." 

Now, there are some, at least, who differ widely from this paper 
in its opinion and advice that contemptuous silence is the best re- 
ply to Colonel Ingersoll' s anti-Bible lectures. If Colonel Ingersoll 
be as this statement asserts, " the eloquent blasphemer who will 
vanquish the eminent ministers all the time on the forum " and 
who " will sway the multitude and put the clergy at a disadvan- 
tage," surely he is not a mere vain and empty declaim er and fan- 
atic, but is sufficiently " formidable" to be arrested in his perni- 
cious career by an oj)en and manly refutation of his errors and a 
bold contention for the truth, in opposition to them. May not 
" the subtle infidelity" now so generally " diffused among our 
intelligent people," complained of as " the most dangerous foe to 
Christianity," be due to this supine policy of silent contempt which 
this editor still recommends ? If past indifference and impunity 
have failed to arrest his career or to check the flood-tide of " sub- 
'tle infidelity now diffused" throughout the land, is it not timely 
wisdom to change the tactics and confront the enemy by more ef- 
fectual weapons ? It is, therefore, not easy to see in the facts recited 
in the Times any ground to condemn the " twelve ministers of 
Chicago" confessing the Christian faith, for attempting to refute 



12. 



the bold blasphemer and for defending what they may have con- 
sidered the fortress of their faith. The wonder is that they have 
not spoken sooner. It is to be regretted, however, that they 
should have undertaken their work of reply behind the back of 
their assailant and not in open opposition in his presence, and be- 
fore the same audience that witnessed his assaults, so that the 9,n- 
tidote might have followed the poison. Such would have been a 
nobler and a wiser valor. 

It is certain that our forefathers, in laying the fabric of our gov- 
ernment and the foundations of our civil and religious freedom, 
did not adopt or recommend the timid and serpent-like policy of 
weak toleration or contemptuous silence in respect to such social 
Catilines as Colonel Ingersoll. On the contrary, while they forbid 
the sword of persecution and the fires of martyrdom as a remedy 
for such disorders, they have distinctly pointed to the weapons of 
fair argument and free public disciission as the only legitimate 
and the best means of arresting pernicious errors in political and 
religious doctrine, and protecting society from the consequences. 
One of the most eminent of these, Thomas Jefferson, in the act 
" Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia," of which he was 
the author, boldly proclaimed that " truth is the proper and suffi- 
cient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict 
unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, 
free argument and debate ; errors ceasing to be dangerous when 
it is permitted freely to contradict them." Such, too, is, un- 
doubtedly, the teaching of Holy Writ — the Christian's highest 
authority, for this enjoins the precepts : 

" He that hath ears to hear. Jet him hear." 

" Come let us reason together." 

'* To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according 
to this word it is because there is no light in them." 

" Prove all things and hold fast that which is good." 

"Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they 
are of God, for many false prophets are gone out into the 
world," 



13 



*' Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to 
the saints." 

The examples recorded in Scripture are to the same effect. Wit- 
ness the public contention between David and Goliath of Gath — 
of Elijah with the prophets of Baal— of Jesus of Nazareth with the 
scoffing Scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests of Israel —of the apos- 
tles with the Jews at Jerusalem — of Paul with the Gentile rulers at 
Ephesus, and Thessalonica, and with the Stoic and Epicurean 
philosophers at Athens and before King Agrippa, and even in the 
palace of the Caesars at Rome. This same apostle warns us that 
there should arise " many unruly and vain talkers, deceivers and 
gainsayers— whose mouths must be stopped . . . teaching 
things which they ought not, for filthy lucre' s sake. ' ' 

Inspired and instructed by such precepts and examples and learn- 
ing that Mr. IngersoU boldly challenges all who maintain and pub- 
licly teach the divine origin, authenticity, and binding obligation 
of the Bible — as the revealed will and Word of God — to meet him 
in fair, public discussion, and to answer and refute his assaults on 
the credibility of the Book, received among Christians as the Word 
of God, the undersigned adopts this method of announcing to Mr. 
IngersoU that he will and doth hereby accept his challenge to such 
an oral debate on such terms of fair and equal rights of discussion, 
and at such time and place, and under such reasonable prelimi- 
nary arrangements as may be mutually agreed. 

It is proper to say that I undertake the task of responding to 
and repelling Colonel IngersoU' s assaults on the credibility of the 
Holy Scriptures in no vain confidence in my own strength or wis- 
dom. Far otherwise. I bow to the truth of the divine lessons, 
" Man at his best estate is altogether vanity." " Cease ye from 
man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be ac- 
counted of ?' ' My reliance to defend the truth of the Bible and to 
justify the ways of God to man, rests solely in the power of the 
divine word and in my earnest conviction of the absolute verity 
and authenticity of that v/ord, which cannot be successfully gain- 
sayed and overthrown by the puny weapons of human invention 



14 



however vauntingly or skilfully wielded. The smooth stone of the 
brook, hurled from little David' s sling, was, when directed in its 
course by the Divine Power, and on that account, more than a 
match for the uncircumcised Philistine champion " who defied 
the armies of the living God," though he was of the enormous 
stature of twelve feet, was clad in a helmet of brass and a coat of 
mail, with greaves of brass on his legs and a target of the same 
metal between his shoulders, and the staff of whose spear was like 
a weaver's beam." .It is the same God that Colonel Ingersoll now 
has the temerity to defy in denying and denouncing " the Eecord 
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 
In such a conflict a pigmy is more than a match for a giant, seeing 
that it is God and not man that defends the right and gives the vic- 
tory. 

For the rest, suffice it to say that the undersigned is, lik« Col- 
onel Ingersoll, a layman, a lawyer and a lecturer on the Bible — 
that he readily accords to him what is accredited to him by com- 
mon report, viz. : That he is a gentleman of intelligence and edu- 
cation, and of proper social rank and consideration. Claiming 
nothing more for himself, the undersigned submits that they will 
meet, in this earnest but not unfriendly contention for the discov- 
ery of the truth, on fair and equal terms. 

Learning that Colonel Ingersoll' s residence is in Quincy, Illinois, 
I forward a copy of this paper to him at that address for such 
answer as he may give, which I shah feel at liberty to make 
public. 

My address is Stephens City, P. O. (near Winchester,) Freder- 
ick county, Virginia. EespectfuUy submitted. 

Allan B. Magkudee, 

A servant of God and a Disciple of Christ. 

Receiving no reply to this first card, after more than 
one month's interval I caused to be inserted in the 
Post of Washington City, of date December 19th, 1880, 



15 



a second card, which, with the editorial heading, I here 
insert : 

WON'T TOE THE MARK. 

PAGAN BOB AVOIDING A. CHALLENGE TO A BIBLE DISCUSSION. 

The following, 'although somewhat lengthy, sufficiently explains 
itself : 

To the Editor of The Post. 

The interest of the subject and your publication in TJie Post of 
my readiness to accept Colonel IngersoU's boastful challenge to a 
discussion of the claims of the Bible to be the Word of God, leads 
me to think that you will also lay before your readers the sequel 
of my endeavor to bring him to a practical test of the sincerity and 
the validity of his pretensions. 

On the 10th of November my card was published in the Restitu- 
tion, of Plymouth, Ind., a weekly journal devoted to the restora- 
tion of primitive Christianity and the advocacy and defence of 
"the faith once delivered to the Saints." In this I distinctly ex- 
pressed my willingness and desire to meet Colonel IngersoU in 
debate on the credibility of the Bible. 

It is no secret that he has frequently and for years past, publicly 
stood before his countrymen as the virulent opponent of the Holy 
Book, which is the corner-stone of the Christian faith, and has 
boldly called upon all who accept the Bible as a revelation from 
God, to answer his arguments or to forsake and abandon God's 
word. His published lectures all show this. 

In my original publication, I said that " like Colonel IngersoU, 
I am a layman, a lawyer, and a lecturer on the Bible ; that I read- 
ily accorded what was claimed for him by common report, viz., 
That he is a gentleman of mtelligence and education, and of 
proper social rank and consideration, and that, claiming nothing 
more for myself, I submitted that if we met in the earnest but not 
unfriendly contention for the discovery of the truth, we should 
stand on fair and equal terms. " 



16 



I forwarded by mail the paper containing the original accept- 
ance of his challenge to Colonel IngersoU's address in Quincy, 
111., marking with a pen the article in question. A few days later 
and for greater certainty of transmission, I inclosed the card cut 
from the Restitution in a letter, in courteous terms, inviting a reply. 
Not receiving any response, on the 28th day of November I in- 
closed by mail another copy of the card, addressed to Colonel In- 
gersoll at Washington, seeing by the newspapers that he was re- 
siding in that city. I took the precaution this time to send a reg- 
istered letter, and I have before me the post-office evidence of its 
receipt and delivery to Colonel Ingersoll on the 29th of Novem- 
ber, 1880. But to this letter and to its predecessor, up to date, I 
have received no reply. 

From these premises I am authorized to conclude that Colonel 
Ingersoll does not intend to respond ; that he stands mute, being 
either unwilling or unable to undertake the modest task of demol- 
ishing the Bible. Let us hope that he has wisely concluded to 
abandon any further defence of his revolting Atheism. Happy 
will it be for him if Colonel Ingersoll, repenting of his " mistakes " 
at last, should confess and renounce them. In 1 Corinthians 
1 : 19, we read : " For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of 
the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the pru- 
dent," Where is the wise ? etc. 

Aiajln B. Mageudee. 

Stephens City, Va., December 16, 

We are left to conjecture the reasons of Mr. Inger- 
solFs silently declining the meeting for discussion he 
had so often invited, and as this is a free country, and 
he is a free man, no one can deny to him without ques- 
tion the indulgence of his newly found reticence and 
reserve. As he continues, however, his persistent and 
reckless work of hostility to the Bible, and his heedless 
animosity to all revealed religion, which is displayed 



17 



in its latest development by the publication recently of 
his pamphlet lecture entitled, by a contemptuous 
travesty of the Bible question (taken from Acts, chapter 
16 :30), " What must tve do to be Savedf Mr. In- 
gersoll must be made to understand that the question 
has two sides to it, and that notwithstanding his as- 
sumed irresponsibility to public opinion for the effect 
of his shocking atheism, others have also the rights of 
free speech and fair criticism on his virulent assaults on 
their faith which they hasten to exercise, appealing to 
the enlightened reason, the intelligent apprehension, 
and the moral sense of their countryn^^n, who will ren- 
der a fair and honest judgment between them. 



18 



CHAPTER L 

" AH things are of God.;'— ;St Paul. 

When" Voltaire said : "If there were no God, it 
would be necessary to invent one." lie gave utterance to 
a truism which is abundantly proved by the history and 
experience of mankind. It finds a recent striking il- 
lustration in the voluminous writings, lectures, etc., of 
M.r. Ingersoll. Atheist as he is, the more he persists in 
ignoring and banishing G-od from our world and race 
the more earnest is the persuasion of all intelligent and 
thoughtful minds that on that theory the world would 
be a trackless wilderness, society an arid waste, and 
man the monarch of a grand, void, vast chaos. The 
interests and the real happiness of mankind, no less 
than their ideas and feelings, sympathies and emotions, 
are so interwoven with this sentiment of religious faith 
and duty, that they are naturally impelled to the rec- 
ognition of a Supreme Power, to whom, without any 
unworthy self-humiliation, they willingly pay the hom- 
age of their veneration and worship. This sentiment is 
faithfully delineated by the Roman Cato : 

" If there's a jDower above us 
And that there is all nature cries aloud 
Through all her works, 
He must delight in virtue, 
And that which he delights in 
Must be happy." 



19 



The statesman knows well that no people can be 
safely governed without this supporting faith in re- 
sponsibility to a supreme authority, and that no social 
compact can be made to cohere except by the cement 
and saving efficacy of a firm religious faith in its mem- 
bers. Hence the invocation of the Divine name in ju- 
dicial proceedings, oaths of office, etc. 

Can we ever forget the lessons taught by the French 
Revolution of 1793, whose appalling crimes, yet within 
the memory of living witnesses, are to be traced to the 
revolting creed of Mr. Ingersoll's brother Atheists that 
''Death is an eternal sleep, and there is no God but 
reason ?" 

In the United States and through Protestant Europe, 
faith in the Bible and the obligations its teachings im- 
pose, constitute this social cement, and it is not, there- 
fore, either necessary or possible to invent " another or 
a higher power." Is it therefore v\'onderfLil that in 
Bible lands all efforts, ancient or modern, to undermine 
and overturn the Divine oracles have recoiled upon their 
authors and abettors ? Like curses, they come home to 
roost and to torment their inventors. 

This latest attempt in that direction in Mr. Inger- 
soll's pamphlet entitled, " What must we do to be 
Saved?" forms no exception to the rule. It already 
shares the fate of all its predecessors ; nor is it surpris- 
ing that it should be so. The Bible is so obviously and 
triumphantly proved to be true, in the eyes of every in- 
telligent examiner of the sacred record, that no one who 
has weighed the evidence with candor, and is not an 



JO 



unreasonable or a wicked man, will 2)i*esume to deny it. 
Such is its own testimony, as declared in both the Old 
and the New Testament. In the former, it is written, 
it is." the fool who hath said in his heart there is no 
God," and in the latter, St. Paul prays that he " may 
be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men," adding 
"/or all men have not faith, ^^ which is equivalent to de- 
claring that a man without faith is both unreasonable 
and wicked. Although Mr. Ingersoll may not regard 
such condemnation as damaging to his cause, seeing 
that he discards and denies the apostle's authority in 
the premises, the concurrence of the public judgment 
among enlightened men in this conclusion, however, in- 
vests the charge with a gravity and importance which 
cannot be eluded or retorted. We shall expect, in the 
sequel, to fortify this conclusion by the oracles of reason 
and revelation so as to leave no room to doubt it. 

It cannot be expected that we should meet and con- 
fute, one by one, the very many mistakes of fact and 
errors of reasoning into which Mr. Ingersoll has fallen, 
nor is it necessary. 

His pre-judgment of what, as an honest examiner, he 
ought to have subjected to proof, is indicated by the 
self -in vented motto he has prefixed to his latest work. In 
it he has brought forward the new charge of interpola- 
tions in the Bible text. He says : " Interpolations are 
the foundation stones of every orthodox church." 
Now we know this is untrue, although, as already said, 
that statement, if true, does not affect the integrity of 
the Bible record, and might pass unchallenged in ou;* 



defence of it, yet as he repeats, specifically, the "charge 
of interpolations of the text of Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke, it is well here to note, 

I. That he never charges such adulterations except 
when he is confronted with some text which stands in- 
conveniently in the way of his own preconceived theory ; 
and 

II. That he never troubles himself to give any other 
authority for so grave a charge than his bare assertion. 
He boldly reckons on the enormous credulity of his read- 
ers or on their unlimited confidence in his infallibility, 
in lieu of the high and imposing authority which every 
other scholar and critic feels bound to avouch in support 
of a charge so grave. Let one example of his method 
of' procedure suffice. In his bitter denial and denancia- 
tiDii of Mark 16 : 16: " He that belie veth and is baptized 
shall be saved ; and he that belie veth »ot shall be 
damned" (p. 39), he says, "I propose to prove to you that 
this is an interpolation ;" and his proof consists in the 
simple assertion that as neither Matthew nor Luke nor 
John record the words, which Mark alone preserves, they 
must be interpolated. To give some color to this con- 
jecture he writes: "In the first place, not one word is 
said about belief in Matthew. In the next place not 
one luord about belief in Mark until we come to that 
verse" . . . and "Luke gives an account of the 
same last conversation and not one word does he say 
upon that subject," and " I turn to the first chapter of 
the Acts, and find an account of the last conversation, 
and in that conversation there is not one word on this 



22 



subject/' and then lie audaciously concludes, in tri- 
umph, ' ' lliis is a demonstration that the passage in 
Mark is an interpolation !" 

Is our author accustomed to rest his '' demonstra- 
tions" at the bar on such reasoning as this ? Would he 
presume, as a historian collating the written testimony 
of four witnesses, to reject every fact which was not at- 
tested, totidem verbis, by each and all ? He is a lawyer 
and should know that the most authentic testimony of 
several witnesses to the same transaction em^bodies 
" substantial truth under circumstantial variety,"* a^nd 
that the failure of one or more witnesses to see or hear 
or report every or any given incident of the scene which 
may be preserved or recorded by another with equal or 
better opportunities to know, is never accepted as a 
group.^ of exclusion of the latter's statement, for the 
sim^pie reason that there is no necessary conflict between 
them. It is merely negative, is easily accounted for, 
and is never permitted to impeach the positive testi- 
mony of the fuller narrative, for both may be true. 
Besides, it should be remembered that these four histor- 
ical narratives, usually called gospels, were not written 
at the same time or upon consultation. We see from 
Luke's preliminary statement to his friend Theophilus 
— not objected to as an interpolation — that ''many have 
taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of 
those things which are most surely believed among us, 
even as they delivered tliem to us, who from the begin- 
ning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word," 
* Starkie on Evidence. 



23 



etc. — that there had been certain written narratives 
previous to Luke's history. 

The chronology of the four narratives shows the same 
fact, for we know that John was the survivor and last 
writer of them all. We are not, therefore, surprised to 
find that in the preparation of their histories respec- 
tively, each should be desirous and even careful to 
avoid reciting and repeating what his predecessors had 
already written, and should prefer to preserve and re- 
cord some other of the wonderful deeds and words of 
Him who spake as never man spake. 

There was no scarcity of material for these fuller 
and varied records of the acts and sayings of the great 
Teacher ; for John tells us in his narrative that 
*' Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of 
his disciples which are not written in this book," etc. 
It is thus we are to account for the variation of 
the matter of Luke and John, the latest biogra- 
phers, from those of their predecessors, Matthew 
and Mark. John's Gospel, we know, is very notably 
different from all the others, preserving more of the 
words and discourses of our Lord than any of them. 
These obvious considerations sufficiently account for the 
omissions referred to, and afford to every fair mind the 
strongest proof of the unaffected honesty of the several 
historians, for had their histories exhibited a close cor- 
respondence and conformity as to particular statements, 
which would be natural with the work of impostors, 
there would have been ground to suspect and charge 
collusion and fraud. 



24 



But is Mr. Ingersoll aware that, in imputing fraudu- 
lent interpolations on the ground that all the Evangel- 
ists do not chronicle ever}^ notable saying or deed of 
their Master, he wields a two-edged sword and stands 
on dangerous ground ? If the objectionable text re- 
ferred to (Mark 16 : 16) is to be discarded for the 
reason stated, as an interpolation and apocryphal, does 
not the Sermon on the Mount share the same fate ? It 
is Matthew alone who chronicles this sermon in full, 
which Mr. Ingersoll indorses and approves so warmly, 
saying : " All the miracles, including the resurrection 
and ascension, are, when compared with portions of 'che 
Sermon on the Mount, but dust and ashes," and : 
^' For the Man Christ I have infinite respect. . . 
To that great and serene w?:.'i I gladly pay the tribute 
of my admiration a.Tid my tears ;" yet by the inexorable 
logic of hi.a ic^asoning he is bound to expunge this 
sermc:^, thus warmly eulogized, and cast all its wisdom 
and virtue, along with so much of his creed as he takes 
from it, into the waste basket of discarded interpola- 
tions ! " Verily," saith the proverb, ''the legs of the 
lame are not equal." 

Although avowing himself an Atheist, and conse- 
quently without any religion (unless there can be relig- 
ion without any God), he offers as a summary of what 
we must accept as his creed in this last lecture, what he 
calls the " grand religion of humanity ;" and when we 
come to inspect the items of this creed we see that all 
that is good in it is taken from the Bible, and all that 
he declaims against as bad is not found there. Strange 



25 



to say, it is largely made up of passages taken from the 
Sermon on the Mount, supplemented by what he calls 
" the gospel of good fellowship, good friends, good liv- 
ing [which he explains to mean good cooking], good 
clothes, good houses and the gospel of soap and water" 
(pp. 82-85). 

In view of such vain trifling, such solemn mockery on 
such a subject, it is difficulh to resist the charitable con- 
clusion that its author has lost his head, has become 
the unhappy victim of monomania and is not responsible 
for his actions, and therefore we are tempted to turn 
away from the task we undertake, in pity rather than 
reproach. 

But wo give Mr. Ingersoll, like every other culprit at 
the bar of justice, the benefit of the doubt as to his 
mental condition, and proceed, for the sake of others, to 
repel his assaults. 



CHAPTER II. 

"If any man speak, let him speak as tlie oracles of God." — St 

Peter. 

Mr. Ingersoll's Irochiire entitled, " What must we 
do to be Saved?" consists of eighty-nine pages; it is 
verified as the only correct edition by his signature, 
bears the imprint Washington, D.C., 1880, and embraces 
ten chapters. Of these four are devoted to the Gospels of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; five relate by name 
to the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the ^^lethodists, tho 



26 



Presbyterians, and the Eviuigelical Alliance respectively, 
and the final chapter to " What do you propose ?" 

With that part of his work which relates to the 
churches the writer does not undertake to deal, for the 
reason that it is the vindication of the Holy Scriptures 
against their assailant that he undertakes in this reply, 
and Qot the defence of any sectarian creeds or church 
formularies that Mr. Ingersoll has thought proper to 
attack. As to them, we say with the Eoman satirist : 
Non nodrum tantas com.ponere lites."^ And although it 
is through these churches and their real or supposed 
faults and errors that the infidel strikes at Christianity, 
that hostility does not affect the real issue between us,, 
which is, the truth of the Bible, whether his criticisms 
on the churches be well or ill founded. 

If he succeed in proving, as he asserts (p. 56), that 
" in Spain the Catholic Church stands erect and is ar- 
rogant ; in the United Stales that church crawls, but 
the object in both countries is the same, and that is the 
destruction of intellectual liberty;" that "the Episco- 
pal Church was founded by Henry the Eighth, now in 
heaven, who cast off Queen Catherine and Catholicism 
together and accepted Episcopalian] sm and Anne Bo- 
leyn at the same time" (page 62) ; that " The Meth- 
odists, founded by Wesley and Whitfield, teach tho 
frightful doctrine that everybody is going to hell, and 
that a IS^iagara of souls is constantly pouring over an 
eternal precipice of ignorance," etc. (page 66) ; that the 
" Presbyterian Church was founded by a murderer, John 
* It is not for us to compose this strife. 



27 



Calvin, who first inaugurated human torture/' etc. 
(page 77) ; and that " the Evangelical Alliance, made up 
of all orthodox denominations of the world, are believers 
in the infamous doctrine of the utter depravity of hu- 
man nature and look npon a little child as a lump of de- 
pravity" (page 78), if, I repeat, he could prove all or any 
of these assertions it might indeed afford a reason for 
his rejection of these churches, but surely would fall far 
short of proving the Bible to be false. There are few, if 
any, who believe that all churches are right in creed 
and practice, and we know it is quite |)ossible they may 
Ife all wrong, but there stands the Gospel of Christ 
founded not on human creeds but on the Word of God, 
which liveth and abideth forever ; and he is a poor 
reasoner who holds it responsible for the mistakes and 
follies, the vagaries and inconsistencies, of creeds and 
churches, though they may choose to take his name to 
represent their doctrine. 

It is the weak device of a shallow reasoner to charac- 
terize a creed or practice opprobriously, and then to as- 
sume that his opponent undertakes the championship 
of the obnoxious tenet, and proceed to disprove and 
demolish it. Such it would seem is Mr. IngersolPs 
method of dealing with the Bible. He concludes that 
when he has refuted the church creeds, as he fondly be- 
lieves he has, he has overthrown the Bible also, which 
he assumes to be identical with them. Let him try the 
Bible doctrine on its own merit. Let him '^Eender 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
the things that are God's." And when he undertakes 



28 



to quote Bible testimony to sustain the charges to which 
he supposes it is fairly liable, Jet him obserye the reason- 
able rule to '' rightly divide the word of truth," and not 
utterly commingle and confound, as he does, the law 
with the Gospel, the Jews with the G-entiles, Moses and 
the prophets, the oracles and expounders of the Jewish 
polity and ritual with Christ and the apostles, the 
ministers and missionaries of a broader system, in- 
tended, not for one people and nation on one narrow 
territory, but for every nation and all the world. 

Until he learns these simple rules of logical propriety 
and fair construction, he is disabled and disqualified 
for the task he has undertaken, and becomes of neces- 
sity a trumj)et of uncertain sound. This we shall ex- 
pect to show abundantly in the sequel. 



CHAPTEE III. 

" Vanity of vanities," saitli the Preaelier. " Vanity of vanities — 
all is vanity." — Ecdeslastes. 

Whatever virtues and accomplishments Mr. Inger- 
soll may possess, it is certain that modesty is not one of 
them. This. does not surprise any one, however, who 
reads his voluminous lectures against the Bible, and 
will be more conspicuous when we survey the self-im- 
posed task of Mr. IngersoU in his latest work before us, 
whose design is to overthrow the Bible and destroy the 
structure of Christian faith and hope which rests upon 
it. It is difficult to suppress the amazement with which 



29 



one is filled when comparing tlie task he nndertakes, with 
the means he employs for its accomplishment. All the 
usual similes to denote the impossibility of achieving 
such an end by such means fall sliort of their mission 
and prove impotent and unmeaning in this instance. 
To storm the fortress of Gibraltar with a pocket pistol, 
to put out the light of the sun by the glare of a far- 
thing rush-light, to dam up the ocean with the palm of 
the hand, though familiar, are feeble figures to express 
the vanity and folly of the audacious attempt of Mr. 
Ingersoll, however earnest and sincere, to batter down 
the work and the word of Omnipotence. 

Jlere is the light of the Gospel of Christ, which, 
even before its full development, has by its benign ra- 
diance reclaimed nations and peoples innumerable from 
the chains of heathenish ignorance and darkness, lifted 
"them from the depths of the most stupid and debasing 
superstitions, and, in its advancing and resistless 
march, has in a large degree suppressed and yanquislied 
the childish, though chronic paganism, idolatry, and 
degradation of past ages, and introduced instead the 
numberless ameliorations, improvements, and refine- 
ments of civilized life ; a system which in spite of the 
combined opposition of priest-craft, infidel philosophy, 
and science, falsely so called, and while yet in the in- 
cipiency of its wonderful growth and progress, has 
illuminated the world with its ef^ilgent glory and is 
at this day recognized, a^ipreciated, and admired, as the 
perfection of Divine Wisdom, by the noblest and most 
enlightened of our race, and as the only hope and re- 



30 



fuge of our fallen liumanity. And now, after the lapse of 
nearly two thousand years of the world's steady growth 
in human knowledge, science, literature, and art, under 
the fostering influence of this new and divine light, 
one rises up in the person of Mr. Ingersoll, and offers to 
lead us back into barbarism, to relegate our world and 
race to the darkness and disorder of primeval chaos, 
into a world " without form and void." Such is his 
Gospel of Atheism ! 

Now, I am far from maintaining that men who dissent 
from the majority should not be heard. That would be 
to decry free inquiry and free speech, rights which 
Christianity and the laws of the land alike bestow upon 
all, and which are invaluable ; but let us remember that 
He who said : ''He that hath ears to hear, let him 
hear," said also to his disciples : " Take heed how and 
what you hear." Consequently, when one like our au- 
thor undertakes to change and abolish the creed and 
customs of a whole people, and to uproot the well-con- 
sidered convictions of the better part of mankind, on 
the ground that the Bible is false, he cannot expect and 
does not deserve to be favorably heard unless he shall 
be able at once and in the beginning, to present such rea- 
sonable and obvious grounds for his conclusions as shall 
fairly and of necessity compel the respect and attention 
of thoughtful and honest men. When, instead of pre- 
senting such manifest and considerate facts and argu- 
ments, we are treated to stale misstatements, to obvious 
mistakes, to ignorant and perverted interpretations and 
to unsupported assertions and charges of interpolation 



^1 



iiito the text of the Bible, not to mention other assump- 
tions and self-refuting arguments which abound in his 
works, it is not surprising that our courteous patience 
should at length yield to a prudent husbandry of our 
time, and force a withdrawal from further profitless at- 
tendance on his Lectures. He who really has nothing 
to offer us worth hearing has no right to object to 
our retiring from his audience, and seeking elsewhere 
the wisdom and light which he cannot supply. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MR, IlifGERSOLL^S IGKORANCB OF THE BIBLE — SOME OF 
HIS MISTAKES EXPOSED. 

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." — Romans 
1:22. 

Others have undertaken the task of pointing out the 
mistakes of Mr. Ingersoll, which particularly abound in 
his lecture entitled " Mistakes of Moses." It would, 
therefore, be a work of supererogation to make any de- 
tailed correction of these, but it seems proper to show 
that Mr. Ingersoll's ignorance of the contents of the 
book he attempts to speak and write down, must neces- 
sarily disqualify him for the task he undertakes. 
Surely no man is competent to present us with a trust- 
w^orthy commentary or confutation of a book he has 
not examined and. studied with at least a fair share 
of candor and diligence. If Mr. "Ingersoll be a fair 
and impartial critic, it is certain that a thoughtful and 



32 



i 



thorough investigatioii of the Subject would have brought 
him to. the (3onclusion directly opposite to that which 
he seems to have embraced. Such has been the resmlt 
of nearly every honest inquiry into the evidence which 
Christians rely upon to sustain the credibility of the 
sacred Scriptures. 

Lord Lyttleton, the elder, and G-ilbert West, were in 
their early manhood members of an infidel club in Lon- 
don and were intimate friends. From early association 
and from reading the works of infidel " philosophers" 
they incautiously imbibed their sentiments, and held 
the Bible to be a huge myth or a plagiarism from 
Oriental superstitions ; and they conceived, like Mr. In- 
gersoll, the benevolent idea of emancipating the public 
mind of their countrymen from a delusion, in their 
judgment, so deplorable and injurious. Upon confer- 
ence as to the best method of effecting their object, each 
selected what he considered the most vulnerable part of 
the New Testament. Lord Lyttleton undertook to write 
a work to expose the fraud and falsehood of the conver- 
sion of ,^t. Paul, and Mr. West agreed, by a' similar 
method of attack, to disprove the Bible account of the 
resurrection of Christ. Like honorable and intelligent 
men, each set himself diligently to work to examine the 
facts and the testimony upon which these miracles 
were supposed to rest. They carefully pursued their 
task for months, and it was apparent to each of 
them on their frequent conferences as to their progress, 
that their approach to the foregone conclusions they 
had already adopted was not satisfactory. At length 



33 



each, surprised the other by the confession that they had 
undertaken impossible tasks^ being led by the testl 
mony to the unlooked-for conclusion, that what they 
had resolved to overthrow as false was in reality 
true. Such was the natural and reasonable result of an 
intelligent and honest investigation of the evidence. 
Like honest and truthful men, they resolved to write in 
defence of the truth of the stupendous miracles they 
had set out to disprove. Accordingly our modern Eng- 
lish literature scarcely affords two abler treatises, very 
masterpieces of their kind, than Lyttleton's '' Conver- 
sion of Paul," and West's " Demonstration of the Res- 
urrection of Christ." If Mr. Ingersoll will follow their 
example of diligently reading the book he assails, he 
may profit by their experience. 

On the cover of one of Mr. IngersoU's publications we 
read : " These lectures have created the greatest sensa- 
tion in the religious world since the days of Voltaire. 
Hundreds of pamphlets have been published, thousands 
of sermons have been preached, and numberless articles 
have been written against them, with the effect of in- 
creasing their popularity every day." Such is the state- 
ment copied from the inside cover of his latest werk, on 
which cover we find his authorization of the publica- 
tion. If not written by himself, it doubtless expresses 
his approval of the statement. Admitting its correctness 
it affords proof, not of Mr. IngersoU's cleverness, nor 
of the merit of his cause, but argues only an extraordi- 
nary ignorance of the subject, and especially of the 
ftible, " in the religious world," which we can scarcely 



34 



credit, for his lectures certainly present an incredib'^ 
mass of misstatement, assumption, fallacious reasoning, 
and a Bible illiteracy which a very limited acquaintance 
with the Scriptures should enable " the religious world" 
easily to detect and expose. 

What seems to be the most formal and elaborate of our 
author's lectures is entitled " Some Mistakes of Moses." 
Although it contains two hundred and seventy-eight 
pages, it is easily ansWerable in the smallest duodecimo 
edition of a primer which would simply call for the 
proof, while it would take a folio to record the " many 
mistakes of Ingersoll." But the game is scarcely worth 
the candle ; a specimen brick or two from his tottering 
temple will suffice. 

In his " Mistakes of Moses, ^' pp. 100-113, he says : 

1. " Moses begins by telling us that God made the 
universe out of nothing," p. 100. 

Xo such statement is found in the Bible. 

2. That Moses '^ relates that the gods came down and 
made love to the daughters of men." 

There is no such statement. 

3. That " the children of men built a tower to reach 
unto the heavens and climb into the abode of the gods." 

Moses does not say so. 

4. That " the grass began to grow and the flowers to 
blossom without a solitary ray of light." 

Moses does not say so ; on the contrary, Moses tells us 
the first creation of God was light. 

5. That " God allowed Adam and Eve to live six hun- 
dred and sixty-nine years, without knowing their A B 0," 



35 



The Bible says, Gen. 5:5, " And all the days that 
Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he 
died," and is silent as to their ABC. 

6. That " the ark came down on Mount Ararat, a 
peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea." 

The Bible says. Genesis 8:7, " And the ark rested 
upon the mountains of Ararat" — a district of country 
according to ancient geography. How can Mr. Inger- 
soll specify which of the mountains of Ararat, or how 
high ? If I say, " I live in the mountains of Virginia," 
does that prove that I live on the Peaks of Otter ? 

7. That the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt 
215 years. 

The Bible says, Exodus 12 : 40, " Now the sojourn- 
ing of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 
four hundred and thirty years." Accurate Mr. In- 
ge rsoll ! 

8. That the manna, though it would melt in the sun, 
they used to cook by seething and baking. 

Does not Mr. Ingersoll know that manna was of the 
nature of honey or sugar, and is he ignorant of the 
fact that though either will melt in the sun, yet by 
cooking each can become hard and solid, as in rock- 
candy, confections, etc. ? 

9. That " by reading the second chapter (of Genesis), 
you will find that God tried to palm off on Adam a 
beast as his helpmeet !" 

There is absolutely no excuse whatever for such an 
atrocious and infamous statement. It is a gratuitous in- 
vention, as any reader may see by reading the chapter. 



36 



10. That " God believed in, taught, and upheld 
polygamy.''* 

This is another invention of his own coinage. On 
the contrary, God created a single pair the parents of 
the human race, showing by this example, as well as by 
precept, the true law of marriage. This law is expressly 
affirmed and attested by " that great and serene man" 
to whom even Mr. Ingersoll '' gladly pays the tribute of 
his admiration and his tears. " In Matthew xix. it is writ- 
ten : " The Pharisees also came unto Jesus, tempting 
him and saying unto him. Is it lawful for a man to put 
away his wife for every cause ? And he answered and 
said unto them. Have ye not read that He which made 
them at the heginning, made them male and female, and 
said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother 
and cleave to his wife, and ih^j twain shall be one flesh 
. . . And they said unto him : ' Why did Moses 
then command to give her a writing of divorcement 
and to put her away ? He said unto them, Moses, be- 
cause of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to 
put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not 
so.'" 

11. That " God commanded the Israelites to overrun 
Canaan and kill every man, woman, and child for de- 
fending their native land." 

The Bible makes no such assertion. On the con- 
trary, the reason for expelling the Oanaanites, etc., is 
expressly declared in Leviticus 18 : 24-30, and Deuter- 
onomy 18 : 9-13 : " For all that do these things are an 
abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abom- 



37 



inations the Lord God doth drive them out from before 
thee." 

" Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord 
thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, 
For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me into 
possession of this land, but for the wickedness of these 
nations the Lord doth driv^ them out from before 
thee." (Deut. 9 : 4.) 

12. He says " There is not one word about woman in 
the Old Testament except the word of shame and hu- 
miliation" (p. 111). 

Of all the reckless and audacious statements of Mr. 
IngersoU in his insane war on the Bible this one takes 
precedence. It is difficult to believe that a man of or- 
dinary prudence and intelligence would venture to make 
that assertion in the face of the familiar knowledge of 
his countrymen to the contrary. That this charge is 
wholly untrue is easily proved by an appeal to the 
Divine Eecord. The Bible history of woman and the 
record of many of them by name, shames into silence 
the nefarious accusation. He will scarcely persist in his 
libellous assault if he will read in the Bible the praise- 
worthy and honorable testimony as to Sarah, Rebecca, 
Miriam, Deborah, Jael, Ruth, Naomi, Hannah, the 
Shunamite, Abigail, Huldah, Esther and others. Sev- 
eral of these were the female ancestors of the Mes- 
siah. What token of shame and humiliation attaches 
to any one of them, and where is his authority for 
the charge that the Bible speaks of them in such 
terms? Nor is this all. Has he never read in the 



38 



Scriptures such passages as these : * ' A virtuous woman 
is a crown to her husband." '* The woman is the glory 
of the man." " Her price is far above rubies. The 
heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will 
do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She 
openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is 
the law of kindness. Her children arise up and call her 
blessed, her husband also and hepraiseth her. Favor is 
deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth 
the Lord, she shall be praised," etc. 

If Mr. Ingersoll be sincere in making this statement, 
he enjoys probably the rare distinction of being the only 
man of intelligence and education in the land who does 
not know, as one of the recognized factors and features 
of the civilization of our age, that wherever the Bible 
is most read and believed, there the sincere respect, the 
moral elevation, and the lofty appreciation in which 
woman is held is most willingly conceded, and her just 
rights and her social happiness and safety are most jeal- 
ously guarded and protected. Does Mr. Ingersoll forget 
the crusaders and the age of chivalry, whose motto was, 
" God and my Lady^^ f Does Mr. Ingersoll ignore the 
fact, or does he suppose us to forget, that in Christen- 
dom alone, of all the religious divisions of the world, 
the most numerous of -the present ecclesiastical sects 
which acknowledge the Bible, the Eoman Catholics, erect 
churches and altars, and are even charged with paying 
Divine honors to a Jewish woman, the Virgin Mary ? 
Would he have us forget that at the present moment 
the sovereign who rules the widest dominion, and the 



39 



most populous empire on earth is a woman, in the per- 
son of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and 
Empress of India ? Let him answer and tell us frankly 
as a man, how woman stands, and what is her social 
rank and condition, in all countries without exception, 
where the Bible is not known, and where his allies in 
atheism, superstition, and savagery hold sway. Let us 
ask him to contrast the condition of woman in these 
lands, deprived of the light of the Bible, and in our 
own, enlightened by the blessed book. A recent report 
of travels in Africa by Commander Cameron, presents 
us conveniently with the means of that contrast.. 

The following, from a recent English paper, gives the 
account : 

" The funeral of an African chief is thus described by the trav- 
eler, Commander Cameron, as taking place in Urua, in the centre 
of the Dark Continent. " The first proceeding is to divert the 
course of a stream, and in its bed to dig an enormous pit, the 
bottom of which is then covered lo'ith living iwmen ! At one end a 
woman is placed on her hands and knees, .and upon her back the 
dead chief, covered with beads and other treasures, is seated, be- 
ing supported on either side by one of his wives, while his second 
wife sits at his feet. The earth is then shovelled in on them, and 
all the women are buried alive, with the exception of the second wife. 
To her, custom is more merciful than to her companions, and 
grants the privilege of being killed before the huge grave is filled in. 
This being completed, a number of male slaves, sometimes forty 
or fifty, are slaughtered, and their blood poured over the grave, 
after which the river is allowed to resume its course." 

Let Mr. Ingersoll look on this picture and let him say 
if he will still advise us to extinguish the light of the 



40 



Bible, with all its humanizing influences and all its 
heavenly sanctions, and adopt the suttee of the African 
or the self-immolation of the Indian — to fall before the 
car of Juggernaut, or bow in adoration before the cro- 
codile of the Ganges. He cannot evade the force of 
this appeal by insisting that education, knowledge, 
learning, etc., will convert and reclaim these barbarians. 
That experiment has been tried in Greece and Rome in 
former times, and has failed deplorably ; for history tes- 
tifies that in these States it was in the very culmination 
of philosophy, the arts, and what was called polite learn- 
ing that public virtue was unknown, that venality and 
corruption, superstition, and licentiousness were univer- 
sally prevalent ; and in modern times we have seen in 
infidel France the unnatural union of the highest in- 
tellectual culture and literary accomplishment with 
the most frightful personal vices and the most cruel and 
revolting public crimes, the legitimate and inevitable 
result of dethroning the Bible and groping in the dark- 
ness and desolation* of atheism. The highest achieve- 
ment of human wisdom and learning cannot dispel the 
darkness which envelopes the knowledge of the origin, 
the constitution, the nature, the relations, and obliga- 
tions and the destiny of our race and world. Such 
knowledge calls for a revelation, and comes from God 
only. Hence the very first mandate of the Creator in 
respect to our earth was "Let there be light. " That light 
has been concentrated in the Bible for man's use and 
safety, for in it we read : " The entrance of thy Word 
giveth light." Where that light shines, there is know- 



41 



1 )dge, wisdom, progress, power, and salvation. In its ab- 
sence, there is darkness, desolation, destruction, death. 

" Thus men go wrong with most ingenious skill 
Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will, 
And with a clear and shining light supplied, 
First put it out, then need it for a guide." 

In view of this exposure of a few only of the many 
" mistakes" (to use no stronger term) with which Mr. 
Ingersoll's book abounds, I ask the candid reader what 
confidence can be placed in one who, through ignorance 
or design, would mislead and betray him into the fatal 
pit-falls into which he has plunged himself ? Surely a 
word to the wise is sufficient. 



CHAPTER V. 

salvatio:n' by paith. 

" Without faith it is impossible to please God ; for he that 
Cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the reward- 
er of them that diligently seek Him." — Hebrews, ch. xi. 

That God should speak to man whom He had created 
and placed on the earth ; that He should prescribe laws 
for his government, first by oral command, and in pro- 
cess of time, as- the race increased in number and in in> 
telligence, by written statutes ; that these laws should be 
adapted to the infancy, the manhood, and the maturity 
of tte race of man, and according to his light and 
kr ow edge and capacity to understand and obey, an^ 



42 



which should consist in few and simple precepts in the 
beginning, and be amplified and enlarged in proportion 
to his expanded intelligence ; that these should be for 
man's good and to secure to him and his posterity, by 
obedience, prosperity and blessedness from the hand of 
his gracious Creator ; that He should require him to be- 
lieye in his Benefactor's will and power to protect and 
bless him, are all propositions so reasonable as to be 
obvious to the plainest capacity. It has been reserved 
to Mr. Ingersoll and his infidel compeers to deny them, 
to reject and rebel against them, one and all. 

In his latest printed lecture* he has selected the propo- 
sition of salvation by faith as taught in Mark, sixteenth 
chapter, sixteenth verse, as one which particularly 
shocks his high sense of justice and the fitness of things. 
Against it he hurls his most fiery indignation. He says 
(p. 39) : '' It is the most infamous passage in the Bible." 
He calls it " a frightful declaration" (pp. 43, 44), saying, 
" I deny it. It is infamous ; Christ never said it." This 
is his Mte noir, the special foe he has set himself to bat- 
tle with and destroy. His cry is : " How preposterous to 
make a man's salvation depend on his belief." 

Now we ask is not man's every step in life a verification 
of this truth ? Does not the infant child take his first" 
step in physical life by faith ? Is it not because he be- 
lieves what the parent tells and shows him, that he can 
walk if he will try, that he makes the attempt and suc- 
ceeds ? We summon Mr, Ingersoll to the stand as a wit- 
ness. If he had not believed that a certain road would 
* •' What must we do to be Saved ?" 



43 



lead him to Washington city from his home in the West, 
and therefore had taken and pursued that route, would 
he have reached his destination ? 

Will he walk over a bridge unless he believes it to be 
safe ? Will he ascend a stairway or stand upon a ladder 
unless he believes it to be strong ? But why reason 
further with a man who, without seeming to know it, 
contradicts himself at every step he takes. On page 39 
he says that the passage in Mark 16 : 16, which teaches 
" salvation by faith," is " the most infamous passage 
in the Bible ; Christ never said it, no sensible man ever 
said it." " It is a frightful declaration." Yet on pp. 
82-87, he gives us Ms creed as well as his gospel in 
answer to his question : " What must we do to he 
saved f^ He says, " I believe in good fellowship, good 
friends, etc." " I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, 
in the gospel of good living, in the gospel of intelligence, 
of education, of liberty, of forgiveness to each other, in 
the grand religion of humanity," and adds, " That is 
what I helieve in!''' All this from a man who indig- 
nantly denounces salvation ly faith ! as illogical, ab- 
surd, and even frightful. A man, as we have seen in the 
instances cited, who takes not a step in mental, moral, or 
physical life, except by faith as the motive power ! Ver- 
ily such a man writes his own epitaph and follows as 
chief mourner at the funeral of his own reputation. 

Every action is the result of belief. In his " gospel" 
of salvation he tells us he will have a man saved by 
"actions," '^ deeds." Does he not see that these 
spring from belief and volition, and that an action which 



44 



did not spring from these would be the act of an au- 
tomaton ? It is the spring of the action in which all its 
character for good or evil lies. From his own " sum- 
mary" he believes in just such actions as the Gospel of 
Christ demands— " humanit}^, mercy, justice, good fel- 
lowship/' etc.. He preaches that those who practise 
such things thereby procure safety and happiness. To 
quote his words, that " upon the man who does right 
the cross turns to wings that will bear him n^ forever^ ^ 
(p. 86). Is he not thereby proclaiming that whosoever 
believes shall be saved? And as he says "whosoever 
murders, assassinates his own joy ; who steals, robs him- 
self," does he not thereby announce the corresponding 
proposition that whosoever belie veth not in " goodness, 
in justice, in truth," etc., shall be damned. So that 
Mr. IngersolTs own experience and confessions concur 
with the Bible declaration, that " we walk by faith and 
not by sight." 

Let us endeavor now to remove Mr. IngersolPs 
benevolent apprehensions as to the fate of him who, 
sinning against light and knowledge, refuses to believe. 
It is certain he is at fault in his understanding of the 
world damned, and the obnoxious text used to express 
the fate of the unbeliever. We know its Latin deriva- 
tion, Damno, I condemn ; and turning to a competent 
authority, Webster's Dictionaiy, we read the following 
definitions of the English word ''damned, viz.: con- 
demned, hateful, detestable. " Is it not, then, very illib- 
eral and illogical in Mr. Ingersoll to complain that the 
Bible teaches a doctrine which he is thus proved to in- 



45 



dorse, and whicli is indeed so sutisfactorj to him as t© 
be almost identica] with that which he proposes in an- 
swer to his question, " What must we do to be Saved ?" 
Thus, it seems it is not of the Bible's ^plmn declaration 
in Mark 16 : 16, that he has any right to complain, but 
of the different interpretations put upon the term used. 
If understood in the primary, which is the dictionary 
sense, da7nned is simply " condemned," while the thec/- 
logical sense (which neither reason nor revelation re- 
quires us to adopt), ranges through a great yariety of 
meanings, some of which represent to him the most 
awfal pictures that the imagination can paint. These 
last have evidently '' vexed his righteous soul" with in- 
dignation, and frightened Mr. Ingersoll from his pro- 
priety. In the lecture " What shall we do to be saved," 
Mr. Ingersoll has planted his whole argument on the 
assertion that neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke, had 
said one word about salvation by faith, and, therefore, 
as they were with our Lord daily. He never could have 
taught any such doctrine. Now this affirmation is ut- 
terly unfounded, as may be seen from the great number 
of citations given below, which s'^^owthat our Lord based 
both physical and spiritual salvation upon faith. 

Matthew 6 : 3U : " Wherefore, if God so clothe the 
,V'ass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast 
into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye 
of little faith f" Matt. 9 : 28 : '' Believe ye that I am 
able to do this? They say unto him, Yea, Lord. Then 
touched he their eyes, saying. According to your faith 
be it unto you." Ibid. 22 : 5. " Daughter, be of good 



46 



comfort ; thy faith Lath made tliee whole." Ibid. 18 : & : 
'' Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which 
lelieve in me," etc. Ibid. 21 : 32 : " But the publicans, 
etc., helieved him." Ibid. 23:23: "Woe unto you, 
scribes and Pharisees^ hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of 
mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the 
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and 
faith. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave 
the other undone." Ibid. 21 : 21 : " If ye have faith, 
and douht not, ... ye shall say unto this moun- 
tain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, 
and it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye 
shall ask in prayer, delieving, ye shall receive." Ibid, 
8 : 13 : "And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way ; 
and as thou hast helieved, so be it done unto thee." 
Mark 1 : 15 : " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom 
of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe the Qospel.^'^ 
Ibid. 4 : 40 : " And he said unto them. Why are ye so 
fearful ? how is it that ye have no faith .?" Ibid. 9 : 42 : 
" Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that 
lelieve in me, it is better for him that ... he 
were cast into the sea." Ibid. 5 : 36 : "As soon as 
Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto 
the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only lelieve/^ 
Ibid. 11 : 22 : " And Jesus answering said unto them, 
Have faith in God." Ibid. 9 : 23 : " Jesus said unto 
him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him 
that believeth.'' Ibid. 11:24: "What things soever 
ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, 
and ye shall have them." 



4^ 



Luke 1 : 45 : '' Blcssofl is slie that lelieved : for there 
shall be a performance of those things that were 
promised her from the Lord." Ibid. 8 : 12 : '' Those by 
the way side are they that liear ; then cometh the devil, 
aiid'taketh away the word out their hearts, lest they 
shottid lelieve and he saved.'' Ibid. 5 : 20 : '' When he 
saw VnQu faith, iie said imto him, Man, thy sins are for- 
given thee.'' Ibid. 1? : 5, 6: ''And the apostles said unto 
the Lord, Incrccise our faith. xVnd tlie Lord said, If ye 
\\'d^ faith as a gj-ain of mustard seed, \e might say unto 
tliis sycamine tree, Be thoii plucked up by the roots, 
and be tliou planted in the sea ; and it should obey 
you." 

The mission of those three Evangelists was to give us 
in a condensed form, the history of the life, doctrine, 
miracles, and deeds of Jesus, to show that He was the 
prophet, priest, and king appointed for the salvation of 
our race from the dominion of sin and death, of whom 
Moses and the Prophets wrote ; in short that Jesus 
was the Christ or Messiah promised from the be- 
ginning. They accomplished this mission by show- 
ing from the prophetic testimony who the Christ was 
to be, and by historic testimony who Jesus was, and 
thus they identified the one with the other. Another 
of these biographers, John, supports this statement of 
their work, for he says, '^ these are written that you may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and 
that helieving ye might have life through his name." 
Thus Mr. Ingersoll may see how they harmonize and 
reconcile the Old and New Testaments in exhibiting 



48 



Him to whom even Mr. Tngersoll is ready to pay the 
tribute of his " admiration and his tears." 

When those were sent out after the day of Pentecost, 
•when they were endowed with power from on high, to 
preach the Gospel and call upon the people to believe, 
they could point with confidence to Him in whom they 
were to believe, as one of whom Moses in the law and the 
Prophets did write ; and upon the testimony of these 
living witnesses concerning Jesus, as that Christ or Mes- 
siah, they laid the foundation of the Church of Christ. 
Thus the people were required to believe something 
definite and tangible, namely, the Messiahship of Jesus, 
through whom the ultimate redemption of our race and 
world was to be accomplished. 

So far as to the special mission of the Evangelists, 
during the life of our Lord. Now as to the moral con- 
duct of those who recei ved Him and their personal prep- 
aration for the salvation He otfered them through the 
Gospel. As they were required to aim at perfection, they 
had to be furnished with a model of the highest excel- 
lence. They supplied them with that model, and after- 
wards pointed them to it for imitation. As to Mr. In- 
gersoll's charge that Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not 
require belief as a condition of salvation, if it were true 
we might see a reason for their omission to do so then, 
because the model was not yet finished. A master who 
makes a model for his pupils, does not call on them to 
copy as he models. He waits until it is finished, and 
then says " come and copy." So when Jesus bowed his 
head on the cross, and s^ld " it is finished," the model 



49 



Fas complete. His sufferings and labors ceased, and, 
-tfter the resurrection, their work as apostles and wit- 
lesses began. The book of Acts, the record of their 
iabors, and the sum of their testimony, naturally em- 
bodies their teaching of salvation by faith. 

To believe in the Christ embraces a great deal. It im- 
plies first, of course, understanding Him. It is a great 
elevation to any mind to comprehend and appreciate a 
superior being ; one is exalted by the very process ; espe- 
cially when we adniire and confide in such an one with 
the feelings and affections of the heart. Even when we 
say in respect to a man, " I believe in him," it is under- 
stood that we would trust our dearest interests in his 
hands, implicitly. If he should tell me, who am ignor- 
ant of the right way, this path will lead you to destruc^ 
tion and that to success and safety, would I not trust 
him and follow his instructions ? Thus I would prove 
my faith in him and would be walking by faith. Is not 
all this comprehended in believing ? and is it wonder- 
ful that it secures salvation ? 

If Mr. Ingersoll will look into the history of the times 
in which our Saviour came into the world, he will see 
that the people needed some such model of purity to be- 
lieve in and to imitate. He will probably put confidence 
in the words of one who, like himself, has avowed his 
open hostility to religion in a book styled '' The His- 
tory of a Conflict between Eeligion and Science." Its 
author. Dr. Draper, says of the Greeks, the most 
highly cultivated people of pagan antiquity (who, to use 
Mr. Ingersoll's words, ^' had more books on their shelves^. 



50 



more pictures on their walls," and all else that Mr. In- 
gersoll considers the snmimcm bomim), that they were 
at that time sunk in vice and licentiousness. He gives 
also the following giapliic description of the Romans, at 
the period of Christ's cuniiDg. He says, '^ When the 
Empire in a military and political sense had reached its 
culmination, in a religious and social aspect it had at- 
tained its height of immorality. It had become thor- 
oughly Epicurean. Its maxim was that life should be 
made a feast, that virtue is only the seasoning of plea- 
sure, and temperance the means of prolonging it. 
There was a social splendor, but it was the phosphor- 
escent corruption of the ancient Mediterranean world. '^ 
Does not Mr. Ingersoll recognize the family resemblance 
between this picture and that which he draws of the 
highest good to man, the condition to which his " Gros- 
pel of Humanity'^ would reduce us from the elevation 
to which Christ's Gospel would lift us ? Of the latter, 
even Dr. Draper admits that, "for many years Chris- 
tianity manifested itself as a system enjoining three 
things — toward God, veneration ; in personal life, 
purity ; in social life, benevolence." He further says of 
the Christians of that day, quoting approvingly from 
TertuUian : " The objects of their life are innocence, jus- 
tice, patience, temperance, and chastity." Of what use, 
it may here be asked, would be the life of Christ, of 
what value its beautiful delineation by the Evangelists, 
if it had not moved men to action, to a new life ? We 
have shown its motive power for that purpose to be 
faith, belief. Does Mr. Ingersoll expect the plant with- 



51 



out the seed, the effect without the cause ? He no doubt 
thinks that the exalted ideas of benevolence, humanity, 
etc., which he commends in his " Gospel of Humanity," 
are the spontaneous offshoots of his own heart ; but as 
we find these teachings in the Evangelists, long before 
he discovered them, they may be safely traced to 
Christ's Gospel, the result, doubtless, of the Christian 
influences with which he has been surrounded in our na- 
tive land, and without which his perceptions would have 
been as obtuse and demoralizing as those of Pagan 
Greece and Eome. 

As to what he says about- the various churches, we 
may reply, as their creeds, by his own admission, have 
not made all the people as wicked as his premises led 
him to suppose, he should logically conclude that the 
Bible, or so much of its teachings as the people get from 
the Sunday-schools and the pulpit ministrations of the 
day, form such wholesome food for our moral nature 
that though presented, as he argues, on so faulty a plat- 
form as the church creed, it ought nevertheless to be 
accredited as good and profitable to that extent. 

A distinguished Protestant minister* has said : 
^' There are more objectionable and dangerous tenets in 
many Protestant churches than in the Catholic Church, 
but the difference is, the Eoman Catholics have nothing 
but the tenets, while in the Protestant churches the 
tenets are a dead letter, and the people in general have 
the living Word of God in their hands as a guide to the 
Divine life and light." 

* The late Dr. Channing. 



5^ 



CHAPTEE VI. 

PEN'-POETRAIT OF MR. IKGERSOLL — PHYSICAL, MEI^TAL, 
MORAL, CHIEFLY AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY HIMSELF. 

" Beholding his natural face in a glass and straightway forget- 
ting what manner of man he was." — St. James. 

Mr. Ikgersoil's lectures, as authenticated by his sig- 
nature, contaiii on the cover an advertisement of the 
sale of his photographs and busts, of various sizes and 
prices, in which he is styled " The Great Apostle of Lib- 
erty," and in which those who condemn his lectures are 
denounced as " haters of progress, despisers of reason, 
cringers, crawlers, and hypocrites." Yet he strongly 
protests against those " who try to answer arguments 
with pe-rsonal abuse. ' ' 

The writer of these strictures does not intend to 
transcend legitimate criticism in presenting a sketch, 
chiefly autographic, of one who thus seeks to make his 
appearance and physical characteristics as well as men- 
tal lineaments familiar to the public. Represents him- 
self as, in some sense, an exhibit in his own cause. This 
is all matter of taste, as to which men differ. Those 
who set themselves up as models cannot expect to escape 
criticism. He who aspires to the role of reformer of 
creeds and conduct among men, to be a rectifier of 
wrongs, must show his sincerity by example as well as 
precept. He must, 

' ' Point to fairer worlds on high, 
And lead the way." 



53 



If Mr. Iiigersoll demurs to this course, let him remem- 
ber that those who live in glass houses must not throw 
stones. 

How does this new Cato, the Censor, fill this mission ? 
We shall see. 

The physique and the features of Mr. Ingersoll, even 
as revealed by the photograph, give us a picture of his 
prevailing characteristics. His lymphatic temperament, 
his heavy jaw, his thick lips, his capacious mouth, his 
sensuous eyes, his short, broad neck, and the prominent 
fulness of all the animal developments, attest the pre- 
dominance of the masculine, the muscular, and the 
emotional, over the reasoning faculties and the moral 
sentiments. If his mental impressions are quick as a 
flash, they are quite as fleeting. Intent on the flame 
and the fire of his weapon, he seldom stops to see if 
the shot strikes. Consequently he repeats his fire, but 
still misses the mark. He propounds his conclusions in 
advance, and batters his sword to pieces against the 
rocky rampart that stands in his way. He skims the 
surface, he never goes to the bottom of things. He 
deals with superficies, not with solids. He declaims, he 
does not discuss. He asserts, he does not prove. He 
does not reason, but he rants. Ho never deliberates : 
he dogmatizes. He does not investigate ; he invents. 
His imagination has been cultivated at the expense of 
his reasoning faculties. The propensities and emotions 
predominate. They keep in abeyance the moral senti- 
-ments. Such men are superficial philosophers, who 
take up or oppose a position without consideration, as a 



54 



man tosses off a glass of l^er without being thirsty. 
They do not think, weigh, or measure. They accept 
what they find to be in harmony with their governing 
impulses and propensities, and are borne along without 
resistance on the tide of the passions and emotions. All 
logical inquiry, all searching analysis, all study of the 
causes, and reasons, and end of things, is irksome to 
them. If they ever heard, they do not heed the 
pithy truth, " Who most investigate do most lelieve.^^ 
They walk by feeling, not by faith, and are impelled 
only by what they see and hear. Now, not then ; the 
present gratification, not to-morrow's reward, forms the 
motive power of their actions. Destitute of faith, they 
do not believe that it can take hold of any future good. 
They deny that it is either "the substance of things 
hoped for or the evidence (conviction) of things un- 
seen." To believe demands some thought, some inves- 
tigation. Disbelief, or rather unbelief, is simpler and 
easy. Hence all such men are atheists ; it is their only 
creed, or no creed. 

We are not surprised to find in Mr. Ingersoll one 
whose estimate of the moral education of children and 
of the value of truthfulness, is so low as to make him 
write thus in his lecture on " Skulls," (p. 123): '' Suppose 
your child tells a lie. Don't pretend that the whole 
world is going into bankruptcy. Don't pretend that 
that is the first lie ever told. Tell him, like an honest 
man, that you have told hundreds of lies yourself, and 
tell the dear little darling that it is not the best way, ' 
that it soils the soul." . . . '' Think of a great big 



55 



man coming to a little bit of a child with a club in his 
hand. What is the little darling to do ? Lie. of course. 
I think that Mother Nature put that ingenuity into the 
mind of the child when attacked by a parent, to throw 
up a little breast -work in the shape of a lie to defend 
itself. . . . Suppose a man as much larger than we 
are, as we are larger than a child five years of age, 
should come at us with a liberty pole in his hand and 
in tones. of thunder want to know 'Who broke that 
plate ?' There is not one of us, not excepting myself, 
that wouldn't swear that we never had seen that plate 
in our lives, or that it was cracked when we got it." 

In the same lecture he says in effect, that truth is not 
worth suffering for, that one had better lie than suffer 
pain or lose a drop of blood. " He would turn Judas 
Iscariot to his own soul" to save a thumb ! 

Are we surprised to read the legion of fabrications we 
find in the lectures of such a man ? In his latest pub- 
lished lecture he says (pp. 31-32) : '' It is far more im- 
portant to love your wife than to love God, and I will 
tell you why. You cannot help Him, but you can help 
her." . . . " It is far more important that you 
love your children than that you love Jesus Christ." 
He proclaims his utter insensibility to any motive 
power in life stronger than supreme selfishness. Was 
not Mr. Ingersoll an officer in the late Civil War ? Did 
he not there win his title of Colonel ? What induced 
him to enter the army ? If he had loved his home or 
family more than his country or the cause that was im- 
perilled in the war, why did he not remain at home and 



56 



hire a substitute ? Will he deny that his duty to his 
country was paramount to the claims of home and fam- 
ily ? He -is too flaming a patriot not to admit this : then 
he loves something more, in other words, he recognizes 
higher duties and responsibilities in some cases than those 
that belong to wife, children, and friends. With what 
consistency, then, can he condemn Christians for loving 
Grod supremely ? — our Creator, Preserver, and Benefac- 
tor, who offers also to be our Saviour, Eedeemer, and 
Kaler ; in whom we ^' live, move and have our being." 
He certainly possesses the supremest claims on our faith, 
our obedience, and our love. Yet Mr. Ingersoll proudly, 
even scornfully, rejects his service. 

The man who drifts along without question or 
care on the flowing tide of life, without using the 
rudder and compass with which his barque is 
supplied, must at length be carried out to sea 
and find when too late that his frail boat is ill 
able to ride the stormy waves he encounters. No won- 
der that, after a fitful struggle, he sinks beneath the 
whelming waters. In respect to such disasters, we are 
prone to say that such a man is the victim of circum- 
stances ; but candor compels the confession that the cir- 
cumstances are generally subject to his own control, and 
his fate is but the natural result of his actions, or of his 
failure to act. The rudd|r and compass, which in Mr. 
Ingersoll's programme are his /'brains,^' are fur- 
nished him that he may direct his voyage in safety. 
Though informed. of this, he will not use them. Is it 
wonderful that he reaps the fruit of his own folly ? Is 



57 



not the mischief he sustains self-inflicted ? It is a case 
of felo de se. Now Mr. Ingersoll is this adventurous 
voyager, and he hem himselJ: furnished us with the key 
to tlie cause of his irreverence and infidelity in the cir- 
cumstances and the surroundings of his life, which 
enable us, if he will give heed to our counsel, to rescue 
him from the shipwreck which threatens him. He tells 
us in his " Mistakes of Moses,'' that he is trying " to 
save his hearers from a belief in eternal fire." Here is a 
fragment of his autobiography, taken from another of 
his lectures :* 

" When I was a boy there was one day, in each week, too good 
for a child to be happy in. In those good old times, Sunday com- 
menced when the sun went down on Saturday night and closed 
when the sun went down on Sunday night. During this interval 
a gloom deeper than midnight fell upon the house. You could 
not crack hickory-nuts then. If you were caught chewing gum it 
was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human 
heart. Well, after a while we got to bed, sadly and sorrowfully, 
after having heard Heaven thanked that we were not all in hell. 
. . . Why I was not burned to a crisp was a mystery to me. 
The next morning we got up and we got ready for church, all sol- 
emn, and when we got there the minister was up* in the pulpit 
about twenty feet high, and he commenced at Genesis about the 
Fall of Man, and he went on to about twenty-thirdly. . . . Well, 
when he got through that, then came the catechism, the chief end 
of man ; then my turn came, and we sat along on a little bench, 
M^here our feet came within about fifteen inches of the floor and 
the dear old minister used to ask us : 

" ' Boys, do you know that you ought to be in hell ?' 

* Lecture on "Skulls and Replies," republished from the Chi- 
cago Times. 



58 



" We answered up, as cheerfully as could be expected under the 
circumstances : 

"' Yes, sir.' 

" ' Well, boys, do you know that you'd go to hell if you died in 
your sins ?' and we answered : 

" 'Yes, sir.' 

" Then came the great test, when the old man, the dear old 
minister, used to try and show us how long we would be in hell if 
we would only locate there. The grand test question was : 

" ' If it was God's will that you should go to hell, would you be 
willing to go ?' 

" And every little liar said : 

" ' Yes, sir. ' 

" Then in order to tell how long we would stay there, he used 
to say : 

" ' Suppose once in a billion ages a bird should come from a far 
distant clime and carry off in its bill one little grain of sand, the 
time would finally come when the last grain of sand would be car- 
ried away. Do you understand T 

" ' Yes, sir. ' 

" ' Boys, by that time it would not be sun-up in hell.' 

" Think of it ! think of it ! and that is the Christian religion!" 

From the diagnosis of Mr. IngersolFs mental and 
moral charabteristics already presented, we are not sur^ 
prised that in view of this fearful picture of his early 
religious training, and with his unreasoning, but strong 
emotional nature, lie should be frightened from his pro- 
priety, and that its impress should remain on his mind 
in after years, for nothing can be more revolting, and, I 
am happy to add, nothing more contradictory to the 
BiUe, than this creed and catechism that the " dear old 
minister" used to make him recite. 



59 



If Mr. IngersoU had as solid foundation for his un- 
reasonable and unreasoning atheism as he has for his re- 
jection of the doctrine of the endless torment of any 
of God's creatures, he would need no apology at ouf 
hands, but he is entirely at fault in his illogical 
conclusion, " and that is the Christian religion /" If he 
had spent a tithe of the time and labor he has employed 
in his anti-Bible lectures in a fair investigation, by the 
light of God's word, of this inhuman dogma of Pagan 
invention, the scales would have fallen from his eyes 
and he would have escaped the patent absurdity and 
short-sighted folly of rejecting the Bible for teaching a 
doctrine which it utterly discountenances and repu- 
diates, and which is at war with its oft-repeated and 
most solemn utterances. This announcement may 
take Mr. IngersoU by surprise, but it shoald not. He 
ought to have prepared himself by a diligent collation 
of the Divine testimony to support his damaging 
charge against a book which nowhere teaches the 
dogma against which Mr. IngersoU rebels, but, on the 
contrar}^ testifies of its author that God " will not al- 
ways chide, neither will he keep his anger forever," be- 
cause he delighteth in " mercy" — that " He deals with 
man as a father with his children, and that like as a 
father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear him, for he knoweth our frame, he remem- 
bereth that we are dust" — that He " desires not the 
death (far less the eternal torment) of the sinner, but 
rather that he should turn from his wickedness and 
live" — that " God is love, and that we love God be- 



60 



cause lie first loved ns/' and that finally He has so 
wisely and benevolently arranged the closing drama of 
humanity that '• the tabernacle of God shall be with men 
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his peo- 
ple and God himself shall be with them, and be their 
God ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes ;" that there shall be in the grand final scene, 
''no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain, for the former things are 
passed away, and every curse shall be removed." 

Can the emotional Mr. Ingersoll find in his feelings, 
or his judgment, any reason to complain of such a 
Being as this ? This is the God of the Bible, in whose 
parental and merciful hands is the destiny of our race, 
who " will render to every man according to his deeds," 
and while he will not spare the guilty, he will gra- 
ciously reward the righteous above their deserts, and 
will punish the wicked less than they deserve (Ezra 
9 : 13 ; Psalm 103 : 10), and who assures us that " the 
judge of all the earth will do right." 

Let Mr. Ingersoll understand, therefore, that there is 
not a single text in the Bible that, fairly interpreted, 
affords the least countenance to the revolting doctrine 
he discards. It is quite true, and pity 'tis 'tis true, that 
some "orthodox and Evangelical churches" have, some by 
sutferance and some knowingly, permitted the introduc- 
tion of this unscriptural dogma, borrowed from the Pagan 
mythology, into their creeds and confessions ; but. again 
the writer protests to Mr. Ingersoll and to all his con- 
geners that the Bible is not to be held responsible for it. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

THE BIBLE PROVED TO BE TRUE BY REASOIf AND REV- 
ELATION. 

"Come, let us reason together." — "He that is of God heareth 
God's words." — The Bible. 

Mr. Ikgersoll, like all his compeers in infidelity, be- 
lieATS and teaches that reason, not faith, is the true 
guide and guardian of our life. "We have seen how 
scornfully he rejects the proposition of salvation by 
faith. He boasts of the " holy torch of reason" in his 
possession, and protests that " God will never damn 
men for following that sacred light." 

Now, accepting, as we do, the Bible meaning of 
" damned,^ ^ already defined to be " condemned, 
judged," etc., let it be understood that, as to the latter 
clause of his proposition, for once, at least, we heartily 
agree. He is greatly mistaken if he suppose any iutel- 
ligent Christian to deny that reason is the ally and 
handmaid of faith. Let us briefly survey their mission 
in the work of human salvation. They merit our at- 
tentive examination, for both are gifts of God, and they 
offer us respectively their testimony in proof of revela- 
tion. These oracles will never be found to oppose or 
contradict each other. Faith may indeed require our 
assent to truths which are above the reach of reason ; 
but never contradictory to its sound teachings. 

Mr. Ingersoll subscribes to the pernicious sentiment 
that reason and religion are irreconcilable, that where 



6^ 



reason begins religion ends, and vice versa ; which, in 
effect, affirms that religion is an unreasonable system. 
On the contrary the Christian maintains, that as God is 
the author of both, and doth not contradict himself, 
all trne religion will be found in harmony with true 
science and with right reason. With him the proper 
use and end of reason is to inspect the credentials of 
revelation, and, being satisfied of its authenticity, to 
lead us to the Bible, and, not forsaking us there, rev- 
erently to accompany us, with this faithful guide as the 
pilot, in the search and discovery of truth. 

I invoke in this argument the exercise of reason first, 
for it is written, " Come, let us reason together." The 
path of duty is said to be a " reasonable service." St. 
Paul reasoned before Felix of ^' righteousness, temper- 
ance, and judgment to come," He reasoned out of the 
Scriptures, opening and alleging, etc. (Acts. 17 : 18). 

What, then, is the rational argument before us ? 

I. We have this book, the Bible. Whence did it 
come? The infidel says the priest made it. We ask. 
Who made the priest ? Again the answer comes, '' fear, 
superstition ;" and then we ask, ^' Who made fear? Mr. 
Ingersoll's last book opens with the words : " The 
whole world has been filled with fear." '' Fear is the 
dungeon of the mind, and superstition the dagger with 
which hypocrisy assassinates the soul." But he stands 
mute when pressed to tell where fear comes from. He 
'knows the answer will disclose some First Cause, and 
that first cause reason calls God. 

IL Reason teaches us that the Bible is either the 



63 



work of God or of man, and as there are but two classes 
of responsible men, good and bad, if of human inden- 
tion, the book must be fabricated by one or the other. 
Reason argues that it cannot be the work of bad men, 
for they would have no motive to forge a book which 
on its every page condemns themselves, and sets its 
authority flatly against their character and deeds ; and 
if it had been the work of good men they would justly 
claim its paternity and boast themselves in its wisdom. 
But the testimony of these last, through whom it was 
delivered to mankind, disclaims their paternity and 
unanimously testifies, " Thus saith the Lord," and 
being good men they must be truthful witnesses ; and 
hence again reason decides it is the work and the word 
of God and not of man. 

III. Eeason, taught by human experience, discovers 
to us that as the conception or idea of God which is 
found in all men, however degraded by ignorance and 
vice, is not innate, but is traced to tradition, that con- 
ception is not inherent, but is communicated to man by 
an external agent. The American Indians, like all 
savage tribes, have been found in possession of the idea 
of a Great Spirit, of a common Father and Creator, but 
they invariably testify that they derived it from their 
fathers. It is handed down by tradition from father to 
son ; and thus when we ascend to the first man of the 
race, it must needs be that the Creator revealed himself 
to the creature, which accords with the Bible narrative 
by Moses, and of which no other book can inform us. 

IV. Reason, instructed by human experience, proves 



64 



to us that language — Imman speech — is a Divine ar- 
rangement. It is not natural to man but an imitated art. 
All men learn to speak. They are taught by their 
parents or others their hmguage. Who taught the 
teachers ? Their parents. And thus we reach tlie first 
parent and the first speaker, in Adam ; and the Bible 
alone gives us the information, ]n Genesis 2 : 16, 20, 
that the Lord God talked with Adam in the Garden of 
Eden, and even tested his infant faculty of speech by 
causing him to give names to the animals. This con- 
clusion is verified, too, by the fact, universally known, 
that one born deaf is necessarily dumb also, cannot 
speak because he cannot hear the human voice, and con- 
sequently cannot imitate its sound in vocal speech. 

V. Reason and experience again concur in their tes- 
timony that their own existence and value to man arise 
from their relations to an external power. Without 
our five senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, 
man could not exercise, even if he could be said to 
possess, his reason. This external informing power 
is God in his works and his word, which last narrates 
the creation, use, and value of these organs. 

VI. Season deposes, that without the Bible both the 
birth and death of our race are unnecessary, meaning- 
less, and mysterious ; for without a future life, which no 
one will deny the Bible offers us, there can be neither 
a reasonable cause nor an intelligible design for our cre- 
ation and death, and seeing that our death is, as 
reason and observation depose with the Bible testimony 
(Gen. 3 : 19), the '' returning unto the ground out d 



65 



which man was taken," reason reaches the conclusion 
that a reconstruction or resurrection of the dead man 
from the grave is the only method of restoring him to 
life, and thus supports and necessitates the resurrection, 
which is exclusively and peculiarly the Bible doctrine 
of future life and to be found in no other book. 

VII. There is yet another external proof of the truth 
of the Bible, which the friends of the Bible have a right 
to claim. It is that the most worthy, virtuous, and in- 
telligent of our race, the most thoughtful, considerate, 
and upright men of every country in Christendom, 
have, after diligent investigation of the credentials of 
the book, reached the conviction that the Bible is true 
and worthy of all confidence. Such a conclusion is so 
clearly sustained by the testimony of reason, observa- 
tion, and experience, that we cannot hesitate on reason's 
evidence to record a verdict to that effect. 

Perhaps the most striking illustration of this almost 
universal credence of the Bible is found in the confes- 
sion of the whole civilized world of the truth of the 
Bible narrative of the birth and Lordship of Christ 
declared in their recognition of the new Christian era, 
and their invariable use of the date Anno Domini, 1881, 
etc. The general use of oaths and attestations on the 
faith of the Bible and in the name of God in all formal 
and solemn public and private acts and occasions, in 
the several departments of the government, in all legis- 
lative, executive, and judicial proceedings, coupled with 
the distinct and oft-repeated assertion and recognition 
of our Lord Jesus Christ as the founder of the age in 



66 



which we live, should estop or render harmless any de- 
nial of the facts on which the Bible religion reposes. 
Nor is this evidence merely inferential. It goes further, 
and becomes prescriptive and positive ; for by the laws of 
the land and in judicial and parliamentary proceedings 
no witness or officer is permitted to be heard or to act 
who does not avow his belief in G-od and in a state of re- 
wards and punishments. To these considerations we add 
that not in these acts alone but in our publicly recorded 
declarations in those solemn public documents which 
form, in part, our history as a people in these United 
States, we have formally and fully committed ourselves, 
willingly and gratefully, to the belief in God and the Lord- 
ship and supernatural excellence of his Son our Saviour. 

In the American Declaration of Independence, our 
first and most imposing act as a free and independent 
people, our fathers solemnly " appealed to the Supreme 
Judge of the world for the rectitude of their inten- 
tions," and asserted " the separate and equal station to 
which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled 
them ;" they declared they were " endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights," and they closed 
the celebrated pai)er by expressing their " firm reliance 
on the protection of Divine Providence." 

One of the earliest amendments to the Constitution 
of the United States forbade the enactment of any 
" law respecting the establishment of religion, or pro- 
hibiting the free exercise thereof ," thus recognizing our 
religious nature and providing for our perfect freedom 
in its exercise.' 



67 



Tlie organic laws of the several States contain similar 
enactments. In the commonwealth of Virginia, the 
Convention which formed the constitution " mvoke 
the favor and guidance of Almighty God/^ and" asserted 
in the Bill of Rights that " religion^ or the duty which 
we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging 
it, can be directed only by reason and conviction 
* * "^ and that it is the mutual duty of all to prac- 
tise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward 
each other." 

We are not surprised, therefore, to find the most emi- 
nent jurists of our country interpreting the rights and 
responsibilities of all American citizens in the light of 
these enactments. Chancellor Kent, commenting on 
these provisions says (volume 1, p. 657) : ^' The free ex- 
ercise and enjoyment of religious profession and wor- 
^ship, may be considered as one of the absolute rights of 
individuals recognized in our American constitutions 
and secured to them by law." 

In the celebrated case of Vidal et al vs. Girard's exe- 
cutors (2 Howard 127), Judge Story, delivering the 
opinion of the Supreme Court, declared that " Chris- 
tianity is part of the common law oi Pennsylvania," 
and of all the States of the Union. Mr. Webster's argu- 
ment in the same case, sustained by the conclusion of 
the court, is well-known to lawyers and statesmen, but 
cannot be cited here in detail for want of room. A 
further illustration of the same fact is supplied by the 
common law and statutory offences of profanity aud 
blasphemy, and of laws to prevent, under penalties, the 



68 



desecration of the first day of the week, set apart to 
commemorate the resurrection of Christ. 

VIII. I group together certain notable external and 
visible witnesses to the truth of the Bible, which, in 
reason's eye, offer incontestible evidence. These are 
known and read of all men. The heavenly bodies, with 
their extraordinary yet exact revolutions ; the wonder- 
ful regularity and unbroken succession of the seasons of 
seed-time and harvest, of day and night ; the relations 
of husband and wife ; the phenomenon of the rainbow ; 
the attesting explorations, researches, and discoveries in 
archaeology in Bible lands, affording confirmatory his- 
torical proof of facts stated in the Bible ; the newly dis- 
covered attesting construction and admeasurements of 
the great pyramid of Egypt, now identified by satisfac- 
tory proofs with " the pillar for a sign and a witness 
unto the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt," in Isaiah 
19 : 19, 20, all testify in reason's ear that God is, and 
prove the Bible to be true. 

IX. The Jews, as a people in history and prophecy, 
are living witnesses for the Bible. They can, with con- 
fidence, be placed on the witness-stand, for they are 
the most conclusive and the best-known attestors of the 
Bible in all history. 

It is known that Frederick the Great was prone to 
assemble at his court the most learned scholars, phi- 
losophers, and theologians of Europe. It is related that 
one day, with his accustomed hriisqueness, he accosted 
one of his chaplains, saying, " Give me without argu- 
ment, in a word, the strongest proof you can present of 



69 



the truth of the Bible." The answer was promptly re- 
turned, " The Jew, sire, the Jew. It is impossible to 
account for his history and his presence among us on 
any other hypothesis than the literal and absolute truth 
of the Bible." 

The reply could not have been more apposite. 

If we cast away our Bible, as Mr. Ingersoll would 
have us to do, if we seal up the pages of that oldest and 
most venerable history of our race and world, what an 
unaccountable, anomaly, what an insoluble mystery, 
what an unnatural social interpolation is the Jeiv ? Here 
they are amoug and yet not of us. Pioneers of our race 
and among the first proprietors of the earth we inhabit, 
once at the zenith of human prosperity and renown, now 
exiles, fugitives, and Arabs among the nations — without 
a home or a country, without a temple or an altar or a 
victim ; without prophet, priest, or king ; without rule, 
cities, or institutions ; without lands and flocks and 
herds. Yet once, in the days of David and Solomon, 
their land and temple and capital city were their boast 
and pride as the glory of all lands, and themselves the 
people of God, so richly blessed that the fame of their 
greatness spread to distant lands, whose monarchs came 
from the uttermost parts of the earth to behold their 
wisdom and glory, and confessed that the half had not 
been told them. Now the same people are exiled from 
that once fair and fruitful, but now deserted and deso- 
late land, and have become a byword and a hissing re- 
proach among the Gentiles, who are descendants of 
nations whom their ancestors looked down upon in scorn 



70 



and contempt. They remain among ns to this day 
witnesses among all mankind and^ to the confusion and 
reproach of all infidels, a standing monument and mir- 
acle of the truth of the Bihle. Let Mr. Ingersoll open 
the book he has rashly covered with reproaches, and 
read in Moses and the prophets, as in Deuteronomy, 
chapter 28, the predictions relating to the children of 
Israel, and then note their exact and literal fulfilment 
now present before his eyes. He will read all the de- 
tails in this chapter, and a brief summary in these words 
of Hosea, a prophecy delivered nearly eight hundred 
years before Christ : " Eor the children of Israel shall 
abide many days without a king, and without a prince 
and without a sacrifice, and without an image and 
without an ephod, and without teraphim : afterwards 
shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord 
their God, and David tlieir king ; and shall fear the 
Lord and his goodness in the latter days." Is he 
not a witness to the first part of this prophecy ? The 
testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John will ex- 
hibit to him, in outline, the same prophecies in the 
words of that ^' great and serene man to whom he gladly 
pays the tribute of his admiration and his tears." He 
will read, speaking of his countrymen the Jews, these 
words of the Lord, '' They shall fall by the edge of 
the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations, 
and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of^ the Gentiles 
until- the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," conclud- 
ing with his touching and most affecting lamentation 
over them and their beautiful city in ruins : ' ' Oh ! 



I 



71 



Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets 
and stonest them .which are sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy children together even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
would not ! Behold your house is left unto you deso- 
late, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth 
till you shall say : Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord." 

Nor is eyen this all our proof. There are patent phys- 
ical facts in regard to this ancient peopl'e which are 
known to all men and cannot be denied, and which, 
being so peculiar and phenomenal, prove to a demon- 
stration the direct impress of the hand of the Almighty 
and carry us back to the Bible for the only explanation 
to be found. Of these is their continued unbroken 
practice of the rite of circumcision, from its original in- 
stitution down to the present day. This has always 
kept them distinct from every other people and race ; 
and that most wonderful though indescribable mark in 
the face and countenance which causes their descent 
and lineage from Abraham to be easily, even instantly, 
recognized. We meet the Jews everywhere. They are 
scattered among all nations, and yet are not reckoned 
with or among any. They preserve their distinct isola- 
tion and their own peculiar habits and customs in the 
midst of the peoples among whom they may be said to 
sojourn rather than to live. What the gulf -stream is to 
the seas, " a river in the ocean" — what the burning 
bush, of their own Sinai is to other mountains, scorched 
and blasted, but not consumed, so are they to the nations 



72 



and countries to which they migrate. They do not 
adopt our habits or avocations. Thej do not build, or 
buy or deal in real estate. They do not cultivate the 
land, nor sow, nor plant, nor reap. These pursuits 
would identify them with the soil and give them a per- 
manent footing in the earth, which they do not desire 
and will not accept. On the contrary, they deal in 
money and bills of exchange, in merchandize and cloth- 
ing, in buying and selling, in bargaining and brokerage ; 
all their wealth and their possessions are portable or 
easily convertible into coin or bills, so that they may be 
ready at a moment's warning, to move on and change 
their abode to some other region, or to return to Pales- 
tine, the home of their race. 

Not their customs and business habits alone make 
them a peculiar people, but their visage, their physiog- 
nomy, is unique, and unlike any other race or people. 
We meet them in the cities or on' the crowded thorough- 
fares of business, and as soon as our eye rests upon 
them, we say, without hesitation or risk of mistake, 
''There's a Jew" — there is a son of Abraham, a wanderer 
and an exile far from the home of his fathers. Arabs in 
the desert of the people, they are the oldest of existing 
nations, and you cannot help asking where are now 
their conquerors and persecutors ; the Pharaohs of the 
Egyptian bondage, the Assyrians, the Medes and the 
Persians, the Greeks, the Macedonians, the Eomans, 
and the Saracens ? And the answer comes back, " They 
have been swept down the tide of time, and are utterly 
lost in the ocean of oblivion." Yet here is the pro- 



73 



scribed, wandering Jew, who, in spite of cruel and unre- 
lenting persecutions, and contrary to all the calculations 
of human probabilities, remains the survivor of them 
all, and now the only inheritor of the fame and glory of 
the most renowned and illustrious race that ever lived. 
And if you ask the meaning of all this, is it not the 
Bible and the Bible alone that gives the answer, that 
solves and explains the mystery? Opening the ven- 
erable record, you find there the revelation of the secret, 
for you will read that far back in the beginning, " when 
the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, 
when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds 
of the people according to the number of the children 
of Israel" (Deut. 32) ; that " the people of Israel shall 
dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations" 
(Numbers 23 : 9) ; and that after their long dispersion, 
'* shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord, 
their God, etc., in the latter days" (Hosea 3) ; that " Be- 
hold the days come, sai th the Lord . . . when I will 
bring again the captivity of my people, Israel . . . 
and I will plant them upon their land, and they shall 
no more be pulled up oat of their land which I have 
given them, saith the Lord thy God" (Amos, chap. 9). 
The long banishment and exile of this ancient race, 
and the waste and desolation of their native land to this 
day, are not more clearly proved by prophecy and his- 
tory, than their return and gathering together again is 
predicted by their prophets. The intelligent Chris- 
tian not only recognizes the exact and literal fulfilment 
of the prophecies of their return to Palestine, bat he 



74 



hails it with grateful joy, because he knows that it is 
their Messiah who is his Saviour and deliverer. He 
does not forget that ^^ Salvation is of the Jews," that 
*' in him shall the Gentiles trust," that ''if ye be 
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs accord- 
ing to the promise," and in brief that all the promises 
*^ are yea and amen in Christ Jesus." Accordingly we 
are not surprised to see on the broad theatre of interna- 
tional affairs, in the movements among the nations of 
the earth, the daily growing evidence of the rising promi- 
nence and importance of the Jews and their affairs in 
respect to their historic country, their restoration to 
their ancient home, and the reconstruction of their long- 
lost nationality. Within the memory of living men 
their long continued and unjust civil disabilities have 
been almost everywhere removed, and they have risen to 
the platform of political and legal equality with their 
former Gentile oppressors. These are only preparatory 
steps to future developments. Even the very recent 
and significant fact that in the German empire, where 
they are most numerous, as well as in Hungary and 
Bavaria, in Austria and Russia, they seem to have be- 
come obnoxious to the native populations through envy 
and jealousy of their extraordinary wealth and pros- 
perity ; whicli goes to show that this persecution is 
but another feature of the divine programme, and will 
necessarily quicken their predicted exode from the 
nations among whom they are scattered, to Palestine 
their future home, from which, as the prophets say, 
they wiU ** remove no more," 



As Joseph in Egyjot, Mordecai in Persia, and Daniel 
in Babylon, rose to the highest rank and dignity at the 
courts of their former Gentile oppressors in the ancient 
world just previous to their emancipation from oppres- 
sion and exile, so now their countrymen are filling the 
highest places and ^Dositions in Gentile governments. 
The Rothschilds, the late Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), 
Sir Moses Montefiore, and other Jews in England ; 
Grevy, Gamhetta, and others in France ; Gortschakoff 
and Todleben in Russia, and others in Germany, Italy, 
and Austria, distinguished as statesmen, diplomatists, 
historians, professors, bankers, orators, composers, and 
actors, are witnesses in this generation of the long 
promised but now approaching deliverance and restora- 
tion of this pre-historic people to their ancient inheri- 
tance. 

Doubtless Mr. Ingersoll is either ignorant or faithless 
of this purpose of God in regard to his ancient people, 
the children of Abraham, the father of the faithful and 
the friend of God. In attempting in one of his lectures 
to set aside the prophecy of future events of a kindred 
nature, he quotes with avidity this saying of the Master : 
*' Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass 
away till all be fulfilled," by which he supposes that 
such prophecies as we have cited have either failed 
altogether or relate to past events. There are two con- 
clusive answers to such an objection. 

I. That the word translated generation is the Greek 
yevaa, genea, the primary and most obvious meaning of 
which in Donnegan's Greek Lexicon is " race," " fam- 



76 



ily," and it is used in other places in that sense, nota- 
bly in Psalm 95 : 10, in the passage : " Forty years 
long was I grieved with this generation,''^ etc., re- 
ferring to the apostacy of the Jewish race in the wilder- 
ness, — an interpretation or translation of the Y^oidi genea, 
which the English stadent will naturally accept, seeing 
that it is from this root, genea, we derive our word gen- 
ealogy, the science of races. We read in Matt. 1, 
" The book of the generation,^' i.e., lineage, '^ of Jesus 
Christ." 

TI. That the context shows the error of the transla- 
tion "generation," for the associated events in the 
prophecy were, many of them, necessarily in the distant 
future and some are yet unfulfilled, and could not refer 
to the generation contemporary with our Lord. See 
Luke 21 : 21-27 : " They shall be led away captive 
among all nations. Jerusalem shall be trodden down 
of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be ful- 
filled. . . . And they shall see the Son of Man 
coming in a cloud with power and great glory," events 
which we know have not yet been " all fulfilled." 

It is their Messiah who says of them: "Jerusalem 
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of 
thfe Gentiles be fulfilled ; and when these things begin to 
come to pass then look up and lift up your heads, for 
your redemption draweth nigh." And Isaiah, their 
own prophet, in prophetic anticipation of these unful- 
filled promises, breaks forth in the sublime strains of 
poetic inspiration : " Then the moon shall be con- 
founded and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts 



77 



shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before 
his ancients gloriously." 

In view of such incontestible proofs furnished by 
prophecy and history, and to some of which Mr. Inger- 
soll is witness, showing the literal verification of the 
truths of the Bible, may we not pause and ask if he 
can remain the scornful disbeliever ho has been hereto- 
fore ? If he possess the noble qualities of truthfulness, 
honor, and manliness which he claims for himself, if 
he be not of that unhappy class who, " having eyes see 
not, and having ears hear not," let him, like one of old 
who had been permitted also to contend with the Al- 
mighty, lay his hand upon his mouth and his face in 
the dust and confess like him : '' Behold I am vile. I 
abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." 

We shall see whether he is made of the '^ sterner 
stuff" that, in deep penitence, brought the patriarch 
Job to the feet of his Maker. 



CHAPTER yill. 

THE BIBLE PKOVED BY ITS IN"TEEKAL EVIDEiq"CE. 

" The Holy Scriptures are able to make tliee wise unto salvation 
by faitli which is in Christ Jesus." — Paul to Timothy. 
" He that built all things is God." — Paul to theHebreios. 

Havin"G reached the conclusion from the undeniable 
premises submitted in the last chapter that our reason 
accepts the credentials and authenticates the truth of 



78 



revelation, we proceed to cite the proof afforded by the 
Bible itvself, the internal evidence, and to examine the 
contents of the holy volume as forming the rule and 
guide of our life, and acquainting us with a knowledge 
of the destiny of our race and world. 

There are few things in which the Divine wisdom is 
more conspicuous than in the great age attained by the 
patriarchs. At that early prehistoric period men were 
dependent chiefly on the personal testimony of eye-wit^ 
nesses of the Divine manifestations, or, what was of the 
next value, on the accounts of those who had received 
the facts with as little of second-hand statement as 
possible. When we remember that the flood occurred 
1656 years after creation, and that Adam lived 930 
of these years, and that Noah was 600 years old when 
the deluge occurred, there remains only a gap of 126 
years between Adam and Noah, and as Noah's father, 
Lamech, was 182 j^ears old when Noah was born, he 
lived with Adam 56 years, and was contemporary with 
Noah 595 years, dying but five years before the flood. 
Noah hati thus the advantage of this long intercourse 
with one who had lived 56 years with Adam, the father 
of mankind. Thus Noah had a knowledge of man's 
history from one, himself but one degree removed from 
the first man. 

The generations after the flood were but little less 
favored when we remember that the birth of Abraham 
was 1996 years before Christ, and taking that sum from 
4004, the age of the world at that time, it was but 2008 
years from creation ; and if we take the epoch of the 



79 



flood from the era of creation, that is, 1656 from 2008, 
we have from the flood to the- birth of Abraham, 262 
years. But as Noah lived 350 years after the flood it 
appears he lived to within two years of Abraham's 
birth, and Noah's son, Shem (probably the Bible Mel- 
chisedec), who lived 502 years after the flood, was the 
contemporary and companion of Abraham for 150 years, 
the difl'erence of time between Abraham's birth and 
Shem's death. This gives us only four witnesses from 
creation to Abraham, to wit, Adam, Lamech, Noah, 
and Shem. 

The interval from Abraham to Moses is bridged over 
by the long lives of Isaac (180 years), Jacob (147), 
Joseph (110) and their successors in Egypt to Moses. 
Meantime the Israelites preserved their isolation as a 
distinct race by circumcision, and jealously guarded 
their traditional history, refusing to be incorporated 
with their Egyptian task-masters, thereby escaping the 
danger of losing their identity and the memory of their 
traditions. 

To Moses revelations were dictated by Jehovah per- 
sonally, and by him they were recorded in written lan- 
guage and supernaturally preserved in the ark of the 
covenant, and by the Levites up to the building of the 
temple, and in that sanctuary afterward, and to their 
conquest and captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, King of 
Babylon, and during that captivity and exile, by the 
prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, and by Ezra 
and Nehemiah, for, on their restoration and the rebuild- 
ijig of the temple, we find the two last in possession of 



80 



the sacred oracles, and reading them publicly in the 
audience of the people. 

Their safe custody in the second temple continued 
unto Christ, for we learn that the law, the prophets, and 
the Psalms, from which our Lord quoted (Lake 24 : 
27-44 and elsewhere), were all in the possession of 
the Jews up to that period, and have remained with 
them to this day. The authenticity of these chronicles 
of the Jews as a people is farther established by the 
references to them in the New Testament, in which the 
genealogy of Christ is traced by Matthew up to Abra- 
ham, and by Luke to Adam. ' It is impossible to sup- 
pose, humanly speaking, that his lineage could have 
been thus traced without these Jewish records, which 
were accepted as genuine and indisputable. 

As to the books of the New Testament, the whole 
Eastern world, especially the literature and learning of 
Greece and Rome, presented unusaal facilities for mul- 
tiplying copies of such remarkable books, in many lan- 
guages, and for their preservation and circulation. This 
seems to preclude the possibility of their loss or essen- 
tial mutilation. It should be added also, that by a spe- 
cial Providence of God, the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin 
tongues, in which the Holy Scriptures were written, 
became, not long after the death of Christ, by reason of 
the overthrow and dispersion of the Jewish people and 
the early downfall of the Roman Empire, dead lan- 
guages, and were no longer subject to those changes in 
the use and meaning of words which a living language 
always undergoes. Thus the Divine revelations became 



81 



stereotyped, if we may use tlie expression, and so re- 
mained, to the discovery of the art of printing, which 
being " the art preservative of all arts," multiplies and 
secures to the million, at this day, the cheap and well- 
nigh universal diffusion of the blessed book, heaven's 
best gift to man. 

With this review of the testimony, both human and 
Divine, does not Mr. Ingersoll, and every intelligent 
and honest man, perceive that every hypothesis im- 
peaching the truth of the Bible and resting on a sup- 
nosed defect of the testimony showing its transmis- 
sion to us, is based on false premises and falls to the 
ground ? 

Opening the Bible, we read in the first verse of the 
first chapter of the first book of the sacred record, as 
follows : ^' In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth ;" and turning to the last part of the last 
book of the same volume, we read : " Behold I create 
a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and 
the first earth were passed away." 

Was ever book placed in man's hands with supremer 
claims to his interest, his admiration and his gratitude ; 
opening with the announcement of the creation of one 
world, and closing with the promise of another ! 

From this great primal truth taught in G-enesis 1 : 1, 
we deduce by simple logic the following imposing con- 
clusions : 

I. That the Bible contains within itself in prophecy 
and history, the record of the past, present, and future 
of our race and world. It acquaints us with the origin 



82 



and history of one woilcl, and foretells the creation of 
another, with its characteristics of wisdom, righteous- 
ness, peace, and divine blessedness. 

II. That the present world is not, as sciolists and 
scientists maintain, a perpetual arrangement, an end, a 
finality, but the means to an end yet futare. We are 
living under a government not permanent, but tem- 
porary and provisional. The present dispensation of 
man's life, which is the true intermediate and proba- 
tional state, spans the gulf between Eden lost and Para- 
dise restored ; between the Alpha and Omega of our 
mundane cosmos. Our world and race await new de- 
crees of destiny from their divine Creator. 

III. That it is the purpose of the great Founder and 
the Builder of all things, at some time in the future to 
supersede and remodel the present world, and out of its 
elements to reconstruct a new dwelling-place for man, 
though still on the earth, which shall '^ never be moved 
out of its place," and which " endure th forever ;" 
wherein he shall work out the great destiny for which 
God intended him in the beginning ; when the seed of 
the woman shall have " bruised the serpent's head ;" 
when there shall be reconciliation and harmony be- 
tween God and man, and the long-promised '' glory to 
God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will 
toward men," shall be hapjDily realized. 

Now we are to consider the means by which these 
ends are to be compassed ; for God works by means to 
accomplish his will to us-ward ; for as by man sin 
came into the world, and death by sin, so by man comes 



83 



also the resurrection from the dead and redemption from 
the bondage of sin and death. 

In his character of " the Builder of all things/' we 
may be assured that as a " wise master builder" He 
does not build without a design, and that design is 
perfect in kind, and the highest expression of the Di- 
vine benevolence. Having that design as the model 
before his mind, He proceeds to pre^oare and construct 
everything, all its j)arts, with reference to the plan and 
end He has preconceived. The Bible accordingly in- 
forms us that the great Architect of the world, or cosmos, 
of which man forms a part, has nicely and wisely ad- 
justed the means to the end proposed. '' His hand 
hath laid the foundation of the earth and his right 
hand hath spanned the heavens ; for Thou hast created 
all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were cre- 
ated." 

The prophet Isaiah informs us, in strains of sublime 
eloquence, that the great Architect " measured the 
waters in the hollow of his hand, meted out heaven 
with a span, comprehended the dust of the earth in a 
measure, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills 
in a balance." Having finished the task. He saw all the 
works He had made, and pronounced them, " good, 
very good ;" and such was the admirable wisdom and the 
glorious harmony and beauty of their mechanism, that 
" the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
God shouted for joy." 



84 



CHAPTER IX. 

, MR. IKGEESOLL'S II^CONSISTENCIES — HIS EELIGIOIST 
OF HUMAITITY. 

" Do men gatlier grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ?" — Words 
of Christ. 

We appeal to the good sense of our readers to decide 
if it is wise to take one for a guide who is himself ig- 
norant of the way ; and we ask if one who believes 
things directly opposite, can be said to know any thing 
on the subject. Speaking of death. Mr. Ingersoll giyes 
utterance to the following flat contradictions : " It is a 
wreck which marks at last the end of all.'^ " We 
strive in vain to look beyond the heights." " On his 
forehead [the dead man's], fell the golden dawning of 
a grander day. . . . "In the night of death hope 
sees a star and hears the rustle of a wing. " " He [Christ] 
knew there was no such thing as death; He knew that 
what we call death was but the eternal ope7iing of the 
everlasting gates of joy. ^^ These are all in the compass 
of a single discourse. 

He speaks of the '^"infinite absurdity of vicarious 
virtue and vice," and, in the same lecture, he says : 
'' Let me say, once for all, that for the man Christ I 
have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that 
the place where man has died for man is holy ground.''^ 
Is not this '^ vicarious virtue?" Mr. Ingersoll asks ug 
to try the claims of the New Testament, a volume con- 



85 



sisting of twenty-seven separate books, on the testimony 
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, three of them only — 
though we have proved they support the others. Dis- 
carding entirely the books of the Old Testament as at- 
testing the truth of the New, he divorces the proposi- 
tion from the proof, and modestly asks us to give the 
Scotch verdict of " not proven." 

"What must we do to be Saved?" the title of his 
last lecture, is a question propounded in the Book 
of Acts. He then shuts and hides the book and asks 
us to find the answer. He propounds one of his own 
invention, and insists on our acceptance of it as satis- 
factory. Thus he finds the book to be good enough 
for the question, but no authority whatever for the 
answer. He is either Ignorant or oblivious of the fact 
that up to the resurrection and ascension and for near- 
ly ten years afterwards, the Gospel was confined exclu- 
sively in its teaching, preaching, and promises, and in 
its faith and rites, to the Jews; that previously to the 
resurrection its divine teachers, the apostles, were for- 
bidden by the Master to leave Judea or to carry it to 
the Gentiles : "Go ye not unto the Gentiles nor into 
any city of the Samaritans." " I am sent to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel." It w^as after his resur- 
rection that the programme was enlarged and they were 
required to teach all nations, to go into all the world 
and preach the Gospel to every creature. It is in the 
Acts, tenth chapter, that we first meet with the intro- 
duction and offer of sahation to the Gentiles, in the 
house of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion. Yet we here see 



86 



that Colonel Ingersoll, a Gentile, by excluding this his- 
torical book, the Acts, and confining the examination 
of his proofs to the three Evangelists, shuts off himself 
and his race from all claim to gospel salvation, and of 
course necessarily " proves himself out of court." Such 
is the consequence of a man, unable to swim, venturing 
into deep water. This simple explanation takes away 
the ground of the objection to the ISTew Testament 
books as competent testimony, which accordingly loses 
all its force. 

It is not proposed to hold Mr. Ingersoll to any rigid 
rule of consistency. Error is never consistent, and it is 
only when a sophist assumes the role of a Solomon and 
imposes on the credulity of simple minds to their in- 
jury, that the friends of truth tliink it necessary to in- 
terpose. The mistakes of fact and the errors of reason- 
ing already pointed out may suffice to destroy all confi- 
dence in the logic of this Bible assailant, and teach him 
the wholesome lesson in the fable that he " bites a 
file.'^ But the inconsistency between the title of this 
last lectare and the creed or no creed he alternately ac- 
cepts or rejects, is so glaring as to point a moral and 
provoke a logical transfixion. In reply to the reason- 
able demand upon him, " What do you propose," he 
undertakes, with strange mental obliquity', to give us in 
lieu of Bible Christianity, what he calls the " Eeligion 
of Humanity," already defined to us as " good fellow- 
ship, good friends, good cooking, good clothes, good 
houses, an'd a plenty of soap and water." In respect to 
this frivolous levity and derogatory stylo of treating 



m 



such a subject, all we have to say of it is, that if it bet- 
ter suits the taste of our author to lay aside the dignity 
of a grave discussion which relates to the happiness and^ 
destiny of our race and world, and descend into the 
arena as the Mr. Merryman of the circus in his doublet 
and hose, or as the Court Jester in his fool's cap and 
bells, it is not for us to object. In our humble judg- 
ment Mr. Ingersoll thereby underrates the intelligence 
and moral sense of the better class of men in every com- 
munity, though he may gain the plaudits of the unthink- 
ing, ignorant, or prejudiced multitude — "lewd fellows 
of the baser sort," of the apostolic times. But to all 
the honors to be gleaned on that field of combat he is 
heartily welcome, without competition. Such men act 
from ignorance, depravity, prejudice, or some bad mo- 
tive. They join the vulgar clamor, they know not why, 
and their hiss, though loud, brings not the pang of a 
moment. With all such, a sneer is better than an argu- 
ment, ridicule is better than reason, and a laugh or a 
ribald jest outweighs the work of the brightest intellect 
and the profoundest wisdom. ^' jVo7i tali auxilio ; nee 
istis defensoriius.^^ * On the other hand, the censure 
of good and honorable men is the fruit of conviction. 
It springs from an aversion to what is contrary to their 
own excellence, and cannot be disregarded. If his relig- 
ion of humanity proposes no more for mankind than to 
secure to them in the present life good fellowship, good 
friends . . . and personal cleanliness, does he not 
see that its mission is preposterously short ? Like the 
* Not by such aid— not with these defenders. 



88 



Pharisees of old, it undertakes only to make clean " the 
outside of the cup and the platter, while within they 
are full of extortion and excess, of dead men's bones 
and all uncleanness. " 

Such is the outcome of his atheism as a remedy for 
the ills of this mortal life, the most serious and griev- 
ous of which, we know by experience, are not those of 
our present physical surroundings, but those that spring 
from mental anguish, from social wrongs, and from 
painful anxieties respecting our relations to a future 
life. For these he is forced to confess his gospel offers 
no remedy. JSTow it is here that salvation by faith, 
which he scornfully regrets, comes in to fill this aching 
void in our hearts, and fully supplies the wants and ne- 
cessities of our sentient and social existence, such as 
''love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance." How infinitely superior 
the system which fills the measure of all our wants ! To 
read from the book which Mr. Ingersoll ventures to 
attack : " Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
promise of the life which now is and of that which is to 
come." How inconsistent and unreasonable to call on 
us to exchange the one for the other, to surrender our 
faith and hope in future blessedness, the unsearchable 
riches of Christ, for the utter poverty and the dismal 
dread of the universal blank nothingness of Atheism, 
the gloom, the despair, and desolation, of Mr. Inger- 
soll's Gospel. 

Looking at the title of Mr. Ingersoll's last lecture. 
What must we do to be Saved?" may we not ask. 



(( 



89 



"saved from what?" I^ot death, for mankind con- 
tinue to die, and he does not propose to bestow immor- 
tality on his disciples. Not from sin — for of what value 
is such salvation if men, the best of them, will continue 
to sin as long as they live, and if sin is never to be 
punished or banished from our world ? From the loss 
or want of *' good-fellowship, . . . good houses, 
good clothes, pictures on the walls and carpets on the 
floors, and plenty of soap and water ?" Is his humanity 
scheme an universal insurance society against the want 
or loSs of these? If not, his gospel is a failure and a 
fraud. If impotent for any certain good in the present 
life, and if, as he believes, there is no God and no future 
life, may we not repeat cui lono ? Let him answer, if 
he can. He cannot retort the question to the Chris- 
tian. If he does, the Bible answer is full and explicit : 
" You shall call his name Jesus, for He shall save His 
people from* their sins." His first mission into our 
world was their salvation from sin. His second, '' at 
His coming and in His kingdom," will be their salva- 
tion and redemption from death and all the pains and 
sorrows of this mortal life. Eescued from the domin- 
ion of death and the grave by their glorious resurrection 
and conquest of their last enemy, they will be able to 
sing the triumphant song, " Oh ! Death, where is thy 
sting? Oh ! grave, where is thy victory ?" adding the 
soul-stirring refrain, " Thanks be to God who giveth 
us the victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord." 



CHAPTER X. 

MORALS OF ATHEISM — MR. li^GERSOLL AKD THE 
NIHILISTS. 

"Evil communications corrupt good morals." — St. Paul. 

To render full justice to Mr. Ingersoll's moral senti- 
ments we must record his open and avowed sympathy 
with the work of the Nihilists, those diabolical assas- 
sins who are banded together in every country to war 
upon mankind and to outrage every attribute of indi- 
vidual and national life. In his lecture on " Skulls, 
etc." (p. 1B9), he says : 

" I suppose Alexander of Russia was put there by the 
order of God. Was he ? I am sorry he was not re- 
moved by the Nihilist that shot at him the other day. 
We telegraphed to that country, congrafulating that 
wretch that he was not killed. . . . My sympa- 
thies cluster aroiind the point of the dagger.''^ 

Now that the Nihilist regicides have done their work 
and the Czar Alexander has fallen before the infernal 
machine of these miscreants, let us inquire into the 
principles of this great international brotherhood of 
crime, with which Mr. Ingersoll confesses himself to be 
in sympathy and whose work he indorses and approves. 
Like the Russian Nihilists he would of course welcome 
the same carnival of crime, the same indiscriminate 
slaughter of the head and all officers of all governments 
Tinder which men live who do not govern according to 



91 



his or their fanciful ideas of wisdom and right. If the 
President of the United States and his cabinet, or the 
Congress, should happen to come under the ban of Mr. 
Ingersoll and the Nihilist assassins, by the morals of his 
new creed, assassination becomes forthwith the right- 
ful remedy. With him and his confederates, '' killing 
is no murder," and the successful assassin becomes at 
once a patriot and a Ijero. We cannot suppose one of 
Mr. Ingersoll 's intelligence to be ignorant of the creed 
with which he avows himself in sympathy. 

A Nihilist (as the name imports from the Latin nihil, 
which means nothing) is one who seeks by yioLence and 
" at the point of the dagger," to subvert all existing gov- 
ernments among men, to reduce them to nothing, and to 
substitute in their place the savagery, crime, and ruin of 
universal destruction. As a means to this end it pro- 
poses, first, to abolish God, and, second, to banish from 
the world and among men forever all sense of right and 
wrong. Frightf Lil as this creed is, it is nevertheless ad- 
vocated and boldly practised in Europe, and as boldly 
avowed and preached in the United States. Does the 
reader doubt it ? Let him read the proof. 

In the New York Weekly Herald of March 19th, 
1881, we have the programme of Nihilism authenticated 
to us, and taken from the columns of the journal of the 
Congress of the Internationals, not long since convened 
at Berne, Switzerland. This catechism of revolution, 
this monstrous alliance of Atheism and Nihilism, is her- 
alded to the world as the '' gospel of faith of the Nihil- 
ists." We are informed '' it has been printed in enor- 



92. 



mous numbers, and has penetrated to every palace and 

hut in Eussia, despite the censors." 
The account proceeds : 

PHILOSOPHY OF NIHILISM. 

The principles of this philosophy of negation may be gathered 
from the following extracts : " This gospel admits of no half meas- 
ures and hesitations. The old world -must be destroyed and re- 
placed by a new one. The lie must be stamped out and give way 
to truth. It is our mission to destroy the lie, and to effect this we 
must begin at the very commencement. Now the beginning of all 
those lies which have ground down this poor world in slavery is 
God. Tear out of your hearts the belief in the existence of God, 
for as long as an atom of that silly superstition remains in your 
minds you will never know what freedom is. When you have got 
rid of the belief in this priest-begotten God, and when, moreover, 
you are convinced that your existence and that of the surrounding 
world is due to the conglomeration of atoms in accordance with, 
the laws of gravity and attraction, then and then only you wiU 
have accomplished the first step toward liberty, and you will ex- 
perience less difficulty in ridding your minds of that second lie 
which tyranny has invented. The first lie is God, the second lie 
is right. Might invented the fiction of right in order to insure and 
strengthen her reign. Might forms the sole groundwork of soci- 
ety. Might makes and unmakes laws, and that might should be 
in the hands of the majority. Once penetrated with a clear con- 
viction of your own might you will be able to destroy this mere no- 
tion of right. And when you have freed your minds from the fear 
of a God and from that childish respect for the fiction of right, 
then all the remaining chains which bind you and which are called 
science, civilization, property, marriage, morality, and justice, will 
snap asunder like threads. Let your own hajDpiness be your only 
law. But in order to get this law recognized and to bring about 
the proper relations which should exist between the majority and 



93 



minority of mankind, you must destroy everything which exists in 
the shaj)e of State or social organizations. Our first work must be 
destruction and annihilation of everything as it now exists. You 
must accustom yourselves to destroy everything — the good with 
the bad. For, if an atom of this old world remains the new will 
never be created. Take heed that no ark be allowed to rescue any 
atom of this old world, which we consecrate to destruction." 

Such is the official record of European Nihilism. We 
should be reluctant to believe that the deadly poison of 
such a hideous creed could ever pollute the atmosphere 
of our free and happy country, if we did not read in the 
same paper, under the head of " New Yorh Niliilism,'' 
the proceed iugs of a large meeting in the city of New 
York on March 15th, 1881, convened at the Steuben 
House. 

We have not room to insert the full report of the pro- 
ceedings, which appear under the headings, " Socialists 
Exultant over the Czar's Assassination." " A meeting in 
the Bowery that clamored for bloodshed as the political 
panacea. Communistic ravings, etc." But the reader 
and the admirers of Mr. Ingersoll may form a right un- 
derstanding of the cause and the work around which 
Mr. Ingersoll's sympathies cluster in this wholesale 
conspiracy against the entire fabric of human society, 
by reading here the preamble and resolutions which 
w^ere adopted unanimously, as follows : 

At the conclusion of Mr. Drury's address, Secretary McGregor 
read the following, which was unanimously adopted :— 

IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY. 

We congratulate the world upon the overthrow of the absolutism 
of feudal autocracy in Russia. 



94 



"We congratulate the people of Europe upon the removal of the 
greatest obstacle to the establishment of the "Western Eepublic or 
the United States of Europe. 

"We congratulate our fellow-socialists that the great prop of mon- 
archical institutions, which has supported kingcraft throughout 
the world, has been shaken to its base by the fall of the Czar, and 
that the way is being cleared for the foundation of the social re- 
public. 

We call upon the liberty-loving people of the United States of 
America to rejoice in the overthrow of the Czar equally as they 
rejoiced at the overthrow of Maximilian, whose existence en- 
dangered republican institutions. 

Resolved, That the following address be forwarded to our f ellow- 
workingmen in Eussia, to our best friends and most active par- 
tizans, the nihilists : — 

Fellow Workingmen of Eussia — Between the aristocracy and 
the proletariat there can be- no compromise. Between the para- 
sites and the producers there can be no peace. While louts and 
loafers live in luxury upon the products of our labor we must 
suffer and starve. 

Brothers ! Your cause is that of the oppressed against the op- 
pressor. That cause is a holy cause ; the cause not only of Eus- 
sia, but of all countries. It is universal; 

Brothers ! We approve your actions ; we approve your meth- 
ods. Between you and your oppressors there can be no truce. 

Kill, destroy, assassinate, annihilate, even to the very germ, 
your aristocracy. Have for them no feeling of love, for they are 
incapable of that noble emotion. The Committee; 

Comment is needless. Atheism and Nihilism are twin 
monsters. Guilt and crime are their congenial element, 
and he is his own worst foe and an enemy to God and 
man, who is "in sympathy" with either. Thus Mr. 
Ingersoll by his own confession stands before his 
countrymen in association and '" sympathy" with 



95 



murderers and assassins, enemies of all governments 
and peoples who acknowledge the existence and attri- 
butes of God^ and who presume to believe in the just dis- 
tinction between virtue and vice, right and wrong, 
good and evil. Is not such a man an enemy of the hu- 
man race ? a social Catiline, a maniac with a drawn 
sword in his hand, an incendiary in a powder magazine, 
flourishing aloft a flaming torch ? 



CHAPTER XL 

THE DESIGK or GOD IK CREATIOI^. 

" One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, 
but the earth abideth forever." 

" He created the earth not in vain. He formed it to be inhab- 
ited." 

" As I live, saith the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with my 
glory.'' — Holy Writ. 

The world in its present organization is not an end, 
but a means to an end yet future. It is not a perma- 
nent but a provisional arrangement of human affairs, 
constructed with especial reference to an undeveloped 
but rapidly approaching future which will yield ''peace 
on earth and good will toward men." It is difficult, 
nay impossible, to understand and appreciate its crea- 
tion without a knowledge of the design and purpose of 
its Creator. That design is revealed to ns in the Bible, 
for without a revelation we should never have attained 
it. It is this knowledge of God's purpose which gives 



96 



us a key to the comprehension and interpretation of the 
whole book. ' There are two theories extant on this 
subject. One, the most current, asserts . that Chris- 
tianity, the Gospel s} stem, the Bible religion, is now in 
full operation, and that its utmost triumphs and its 
richest fruits are to be expected and displayed among 
men in the present life ; that the world and the earth 
on which we dwell is destined to a final catastrophe of 
overwhelming ruin and destruction ; that the race of 
man is to become extinct on the earth, which itself is 
to be stripped of its inhabitants, and then annihilated, 
and that all the good of our race are to be taken to 
heaven above the skies, there to be forever happyj 
while the bad are to be sent to a place of punishment 
called Hades or Hell, there to expiate their offences by 
pain and suffering, eternal in duration, and of greater 
or less severity according to the creed of the particular 
church. This is with many the current finale of the 
drama of creation. 

The other theory maintains that the earth will never 
be destroyed, and that the race of man will never cease 
to dwell upon it ; that the righteous and redeemed of 
mankind will be immortalized ; that the world and the 
race will be ultimately reclaimed from the sin and 
suffering of their past and present state, and that the 
wicked will be dealt with according to their deeds, and 
that as these last are limited to a life time, so that pun- 
ishment will be proportional and terminable. And as 
they are by constitution mortal, and have forfeited all 
claims to, and made no preparation for, an immortal life. 



97 



they will be visited with a just retribution, and, as the end 
of their punishment, go back to the dust from which they 
came, and there remain forever, thus suffering the sec- 
ond death, the wages of sin, and will be ultimately de- 
stroyed (2 Thess. 1 : 9). Thus God's violated laws will 
be vindicated, justice will be meted out, mercy shall be 
triumphant in removing the incorrigible from the 
earth, pain and sorrow will be no more, the righteous 
shall inherit all things, and every curse will be removed 
from the earth, man's noble inhej'itance, and he will be 
once more in blessedness and blissful harmony with his 
Maker. '' The tabernacle of God shall be with men, 
and he will dwell with them and they shall be his peo- 
ple, and God himself sliall be with them and he their 
God" (Rev. 21), and the devil, death, and hell shall be 
no more. That the earth, fitted up in great beauty 
and glory for man's abode, will become the permanent 
home and dwelling-place of a race of immortal beings, 
raised from the dead or changed in a moment, if alive, 
at the coming of Christ, who have been redeemed and 
developed from the present and pre-existing cosmos, 
and who in their immortalized and perfected excellence 
will reveal and reflect the wisdom, power, and glory of 
Him who created and redeemed them. That the future 
of our race and world is to be worked out on this earth •, 
that, in the language of Holy Writ, " The righteous will 
be recompensed m the earth, much more the wicked 
and the sinner" (Prov. 12 :30). That the saints shall 
"inherit all things," and shall reign upon the earth 
with Christ as their head, the king of Israel and the de- 



^8 



sire of all nations, for a millennium, or period of one 
thousand years ; that the wicked, who appear in the 
second resurrection from the grave, will in their re- 
newed mortal bodies be judged and punished according 
to their deeds and no more. 

Now the Christian who is instructed in the Bible 
knows that the purpose of God in respect to man and 
his dwelling place is at present in abeyance of its accom- 
plishment ; that the end is not yet, and that our future 
is disclosed to us in "the sure word of prophecy, to 
which we do well to take heed as unto a light that 
shines in a dark place.-' 

It is the mistake of Mr. Ingersoll and his colleagues 
that either they accept the first of the theories above 
presented as that which the Bible offers, or that they 
discard from their view all considerations of a future 
life, and are thus forced into a defence of the impossible 
and untrue, or take refuge in the dark abyss of Atheism. 

Not many months ago the New York Sunday 
Herald invited through its ample columns a discus- 
sion of the question, "7.9 Christianity a failure f^ 
This question was the natural offspring of the mis- 
take in supposing that the end had been reached, and 
that the Gospel of Christ had already accomplished its 
mission, all it had proposed or promised to do for man- 
kind on this earth, in preparing the elect for their bless- 
edness in heaven. 

The controversy in the Herald took a wide range. 
At length one disputant suggested that the discussion 
was premature and illogical, for the sufficient reason 



99 



that CMstianity was yet on trial, and that the end is 
not yet, that the time to develop its blessings, its tri- 
umphs, and its rewards has not arrived, and that its 
promised achievement is to. be '' Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace and good will toward men," 
by means of the return and personal reign of Christ on 
earth and over all nations, and that to press an answer 
to the inquiry now would be as unwise and unreason- 
able as to pass judgment on the comeliness, sufficiency, 
success, or safety of a house not yet built, from an in- 
spection of the materials which were being accumulated 
for its construction. 

The Bible religion in its present proclamation is the 
system of means which the Divine Wisdom has devised 
and declared, to repair the breach between God and 
man. It is a system of faith and obedience. As man 
lost the favor and society of his Maker by disbelieving 
and disobeying God's word in Paradise, it declares that 
he can only regain and be restored to his original, and 
the greater blessedness of the Gospel, by believing and 
obeying the same word of God, against which Adam 
had rebelled ; as it is written, '' For as by one man's 
disobedience, many were made sinners — so by the obe- 
dience of one shall many be made righteous. More- 
over, the law entered that the offence might abound, but 
where sin abounded grace did much more abound, that 
as sin had reigned luito death, even so might grace 
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus 
Christ our Lord." Hence the broad and unlimited 
commission : ^' Go ye into all tli€ world and preach the 



loo 



Gospel to every creature," to the end that they who 
hear or read may believe and obey this Gospel pro- 
clamation, and secure thereby at the coming of Christ 
and the resurrection of the righteous dead, the salva- 
tion, life, and immortality in the Kingdom of God on 
earth which will then and not till then become an ac- 
complished reality. Such is the design and purpose of 
God in the creation of the world and in its present pre- 
paratory cosmos, as disclosed to us in the Holy Scrip- 
tures. We incur little risk in opining that of this 
grand design of the Great Architect, Mr. Ingersoll is 
ignorant and faithless, and consequently we cannot 
accept him as a safe guide and expositor of a system of 
whose beginning, intermediate stages, and end he is en- 
tirely uninformed. " He that answereth a matter be- 
fore he heareth (understandethj it, it is a folly and a 
shame unto him." 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE rUTUEE RULER OF THE NATIONS. 

" The kingdom is the Lord' s, and lie is the governor among the 
nations." — Psalms, 22. 

That the world and the race of man need a ruler 
strong and wise enough to govern them in harmony 
with the will of God and the happiness of mankind ; 
that Adam was placed on trial in that position and 
failed, and was therefore deposed ; and that the object 
of the remedial system^ devised by Almighty power and 



•101 



love looks to the accomplishment of that purpose still, 
are all truths readily recognized and admitted by be- 
lievers in the Bible. This reflection presents to us the 
question, " Do the world and race possess within them-, 
selves the means of rectifying their disorders and the 
many ills to which they are subject, or must the remedy 
come from an external source, from a higher power ?" 

We must admit that human government is so far a 
failure, and has not as yet effected these objects of the 
Divine benevolence. Such is the testimony of history, 
which is biit the accumulated experience of mankind. 
The experiment of near six thousand years in duration, 
not only without attaining the desired result, but with 
no visible signs of success in the future by the means 
now employed by man, w^ould seem to beget an insu- 
perable distrust of the first branch of our inquiry. In- 
deed such a conclusion, in spite of the confident asser- 
tions of visionary optimists, is plainly denied and repu- 
diated by the highest authority, in which we find it ex- 
pressly declared, '' that man at his best estate is alto- 
gether vanity," that "it is not in man that walketh 
to direct his steps," and that " the wisdom of the 
world is foolishness with G-od." Hence the admonition: 
" Cease yc from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for 
wherein is he to be accounted of?" Human experience 
concurs with revelation in establishing the conclusion 
that the wisdom of man is not adequate to the govern- 
ment of the world or of his fellow man, or even, indeed, 
to the rule and control of his own evil nature. Unless, 
then, help and power come from some source external 



102 



to man, the world of mankind must remain forever un- 
blessed. This plainly compels the conclusion that God 
alone is great and wise and good, that He alone is com- 
petent to the task of ruling and governing, in person or 
by a sovereign of his appointment, in justice, right- 
eousness, and blessing the earth He has made and the 
race who inhabit it. 

This truth was propounded more than eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, under circumstances peculiarly impos- 
ing, by the Apostle Paul, as recorded in the seventeenth 
chapter of the Acts. Standing in the Areopagus of 
Athens, the metropolis of all the wisdom and learning 
of the ancient world, on Mars Hill, in the presence of 
the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, the most re- 
nowned statesmen, scholars, orators, and poets of pagan 
antiquity, he exposed the shallow superstition of these 
followers of Socrates and Plato in worshipping at the 
altar of an " unknown God ;" and after announcing to 
them the astonishing secret of future life, not by 
means of their Pagan conceit of man's inherent im- 
mortality, but by the great Christian doctrine of the re- 
surrection of the dead, he still further" confounded their 
childish wisdom in these extraordinary words : " The 
times of this ignorance God winked at, but now com- 
mandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath 
appointed a day in which he will judge (rule) the 
world in righteousness by that man whom he hath or- 
dained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men 
in that he hath raised him from the dead." 

This great truth, the return of Christ as King of Is- 



103 



rael, and his personal and visible reign on earth in 
great power and glory over all nations as the Lord of 
hosts, as King of kings and Lord of lords, G-overnor of 
the nations, King of saints, on the reconstructed throne 
of his father David, and in Jerusalem, then become the 
metropolis and the joy of the whole earth, though the 
cherished faith and hope of the first Cliristians, ^has 
been so long forgotten or ignored in this generation 
that its announcement now as a literal truth disturbs 
and startles unstable souls, and frequently provokes op- 
position and hostility to those who dare to proclaim it. 
Yet it is a fact which none can deny, that even profane 
and secular history preserves the record of this early 
faith of the early Christians. 

Gibbon says m his " Decline and Fall" (vol. i., p. 
62) : '^ The ancient and popular doctrine of the millen- 
nium was intimately connected with the second coming 
of Christ ; that Christ, with the triumphant band of the 
saints who have escaped death or been miraculously (by 
the resurrection) revived, would reign upon earth until 
the time appointed for the last and general resurrec- 
tion. . . . Though it might not be universally re- 
ceived, it appears to have been the reigning sentiment 
of the orthodox believers, and it seems so well adapted to 
the desires and apprehensions of mankind, that it must 
have contributed in a very considerable degree to the 
progress of the Christian faith. 

Macaulay says (" Essays," 668) : " The Christian be- 
lieves, as v/ell as the Jew, that, at some future period 
til 3 present ordoi' of things will come to an cud. Nay. 



104 



many Christians believe that the Messiah will shortly 
establish a kingdom on the earth and reign visibly over 
all its inhabitants. Whether this doctrine be orthodox 
or not we shall not here inquire. The number of peo- 
ple who hold it is very much greater than the number 
of Jews residing in England. Many of those who hold 
it are distinguished by rank, wealth, and ability. It is 
preached from pulpits both of the Scottish and of the 
English church. Noblemen and members of Parliament 
have written in defense of it." 

If the reader will turn to Acts 17, already quoted, he 
will find that these Epicureans and Stoics, disciples of 
Plato, who all taught the theory of future life by the 
su^Dposed immortality of the soul, took special excep- 
tion to the apostles' opposing doctrine of life by means 
of the resurrection of the 'dead. Hence we read that 
they accused him of j^reaching a " new doctrine, of 
bringing strange things to their ears ;" of being a " set- 
ter forth of strange gods, because he ^[oreached unto 
them Jesus and the resurrection" (18-19 verses). Their 
astonishment and indignation reached its climax when, 
in the conclusion of his speech, St. Paul told them that 
God had " appointed a day in which he would rule the 
wbrld in righteousness by his Son, whom he had raised 
from the dead for that purpose." They mocked him, 
and turned away in scorn. The resurrection of the dead 
was to them incredible and an insurmountable stum- 
bling-block, because, if true, they saw that it eli'ectually 
overturned their cherished superstitions, derived from 
Thales, Socrates, etc. Let the reader consider how im- 



105 



probable that they should have charged Paul with 
preaching " a new doctrine," " strange things," if he 
had believed and taught the inherent immortality of 
the soul, which was their theory of future life. It is 
then by inexorable logic from these premises that we 
deduce the conclasion that, then as now, the one grand 
distinguishing doctrine of Christianity is future life^by 
the resurrection, in opposition to the crude Socratic 
theory of the ancient pagans. The exigencies of time 
and space forbid the citation of the copious testimony 
in the Bible in support of this position. We cannot 
deny that immortality is declared by the Bible to be an 
attribute of God alone, and of those only to whom He 
will impart it. For is it not written, '' The wages of 
sin is death, but the gift of G-od is eternal life, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord"? That in the resur- 
rection '^ this mortal shall put on immortality, this cor- 
ruptible shall put on incorruption. Death shall be 
swallowed up in victory;" and the immortalized saints 
will then, and not till then, be able to swell the trium- 
phant anthem, " Death, where is thy sting ; grave, 
where is thy victory?" 

While man is in the Bible repeatedly declared to be 
'' mortal," and as we see daily the subject of death, it is 
written that "the King of kings and Lord of lords 
only hsith immortality." It is a fact of great signifi- 
cance and value in this controversy that the Bible relig- 
ion alone rests on the resurrection from the dead in 
order to another life, as its distinguishing peculiarity, 
while all other systems, without exception, are based on 



106 



the Pagan dogma of every man's being already inhe- 
rently immortal ; thereby rendering of little value, if not 
wholly unimportant, the great Christian doctrine of the 
resurrection from the dead. Now it is obvious to every 
reader of Mr. Ingersoll's lectures that he has never 
learned, perhaps never heard of this Bible doctrine of 
future life. All his assertions and speculations as to the 
dead, the fate of the wicked, etc., proceed upon the 
assumption that the Bible teaches the opposite doctrine 
and necessitates their everlasting existence in torment. 
Is it not charitable to suppose that this egregious mis- 
take of Mr. Ingersoll as to the real teaching of the 
Bible may have betrayed him into the fatal errors and 
blunders which his best friends must deplore? 

Another consequence of such a dangerous error is 
that as the knowledge of Christ's coming kingdom and 
reign on earth, with its cognate doctrine of life and res- 
urrection through him, furnishes the key to the intel- 
ligent understanding of the Bible as a whole, it is not 
wonderful that he should fail deplorably, as he has 
done, in his efforts to solve the great secret of our 
future life, which is easily apprehensible to one who 
has been taught of God's Word, where alone it is dis- 
closed. No resurrection, no future life, is the doctrine 
of the Bible ; for it is the Author and Finisher of the 
faith who says : " No man cometh unto the Father but 
by me. I am the Resurrection and the Life. I hold 
the keys of death and hell (the grave)/' 



107 



OHAPTEE XIII. 

BIBLE DOCTRINE OE FUTURE PUNISHMENT — ETERNAL 
PUNISHMENT NOT ETERNAL PAIN. 

" God is love." — ^t. John. 

Mr. Ingersoll j)liints himself in bold antagonism to 
the Bible, and justifies his absurd atheism on a huge 
sophism in his premises. He assumes as the basis of his 
arguments in hostility to the Bible and its Author, that 
the blessed book teaches, and is answerable for, the eter- 
nal torment of the wicked in the burning flames of hell. 
This error in his premises pervades all his subsequent 
reasonings. He never stops to inquire into its truth, 
nor attempts to prove the charge. In headlong haste, 
and with characteristic inconsiderateness, he takes his 
premises for granted, and proceeds with his arraign- 
ment of the Holy Book for an offence of which it is en- 
tirely guiltless. It is because the Bible does not teach 
the eternal torment theory, which is abhorrent also to 
reasoji, that we reject that theory. This obliges us, in 
the interest of truth, to show not only that the Bible 
does not teach or encourage or countenance his premises 
of eternal misery to the wicked, but to prove what the 
Bible does teach concerning the future destiny of that 
class. 

We accomplish the first part of our task by showing 
that no such penalty is denounced in the divine law, 
but that th^t code declares that God will visit upon 



108 



them a retribution only according to their deeds, and 
punish them even less than they deserve, and that the 
imputation of a measure of punishment beyond these 
just and merciful limits finds no sanction or authority 
in it. * 

Before proceeding to cite the testimony and state the 
reasons which lead to these conclusions, I submit, by 
way of preface, the following extract from a recent pub- 
lication in an English magazine,* by the well-known 
author, Henry Constable, M. A., of London, late Prebend- 
ary of Cork, which will serve to show the calmer and 
clearer light in which such discussions are now regarded 
by an enlightened public. He says : " Among those 
who accept the Bible as containing a divine revelation 
to man, the question of future punishment occupies an 
amount of attention at present, such as it has never 
done since the days of Tertullian, of Origen, and of Au- 
gustine. The views styled orthodox no longer obtain 
their former assent. The rejection of them is no longer 
confined to men who hold loosely or have abandoned 
Christian faith. They are examined, doubted, ques- 
tioned, denied, and abhorred by multitudes who believe 
in Christ and in the Scriptures as the Word of God. 
They are thus being questioned or denied because it is 
no longer accepted that they are taught in that Word at 
all. Christian men are beginning everywhere to say 
or to think that the view instilled into them in child- 
hood, said to have been taught by Christ and his apos- 
tles^ have no other and no higher source than the 

* Tlie Eainhow (London), a magazine of Christian literature. 



109 



schools of heathen philosophy or the temples of the 
Egyptian priesthood. 

" We do not speak from hearsay, but from personal 
knowledge. From every quarter of the English-speak- 
ing world we see from print and private letters that the 
traditional faith upon this subject is being abandoned. 
Numbers doubt it ; numbers reject it ; even those who 
hold it hesitate to speak in the confldent tone of a by- 
gone day. Men of ability are chary to come forward in 
its defence, and no longer seek to prop up a cause fast 
falling to the ground." 

The doctrine of an eternity of existence and of 
suffering to the wicked in the flaming fires of hell, 
once current among the churches of Christendom, 
is now, happily as we see, generally doubted, and 
even discarded in the better light of the Bible. It 
was the natural and necessary offshoot from the Upas- 
tree of pagan superstition and mythology. With the 
pagans of Egypt; Greece, and Eome, this conclusion 
was the only solution they could conjecture of the prob- 
lem of humanity. Like all men with whom the love of 
life is the strongest law of nature, the pagan philoso- 
phers persuaded themselves that death was not the end 
of life, for, although his victims seemed to be uncon- 
scious and to turn to dust and ashes, in reality they 
lived on in some invisible world, which their visionary 
fancy peopled with the departed hosts of their fathers 
and kindred to which the good and bad are consigned 
alike. That man, without a revelation from God and 
left to his own vivid imagination, should have indulged 



110 



in these conjectures and vagaries seems not improb- 
able, tbough many of the more intelligent of these, as 
Aristotle, Cicero, Atticus, and Sulpicius, rejected them 
as mere idle specalations. 

Ignorant, like the Stoics and Epicureans whom Paul 
encountered at Athens, of the great Bible doctrine of 
future life by the resurrection from the dead, of a judg- 
ment to come, etc., they had some apology for these 
crude and unreasonable inferences ; but Mr. Ingersoll, 
now capable of learning the Bible revelation of the con- 
signment of the wicked to a just punishment only, and 
according to their deeds, has, in this light, which they 
did not possess, the means of harmonizing the justice 
and mercy of the lawgiver, and is therefore without 
excuse if he continue to reject the truth. What, then, is 
the Bible doctrine as to the fate of the wicked ? Surely 
Mr. Ingersoll will not object to interrogating a volume 
that claims to be a record of the history of our race, of 
the origin, constitution, and destiny cJf man. What say 
the Scriptures ? Hoav readest thou ? 

" The wages of sin is deatli^' has been God's law for 
man from the beginning. It was first declared in Eden, 
and was illustrated and verified in the death of Adam, 
when he was nine hundred and thirty years old. The 
sentence declared was in these words : " In the day that 
thou eatest thereof, d37ing (^'.e., having become mortal), 
thou shalt surely die" (marginal reading of Genesis 
2 : 17). If we ask, Is death defined ? what was it to 
die? the answer comes to us in chapter 3 : 19 : "In 
the sweat of thy face" (to Adam) " shalt thou eat 



Ill 



bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it 
wast thou taken ; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
thou return." This tells us that to die is to return to 
the dust from which we are taken. Being of Adam's 
race, and as the stream cannot rise above the fountain, 
we are partakers of his death as of his life. That this is 
our sure destiny, experience of our own decay and our 
almost daily observation of the dissolution of our fel- 
lows abundantly prove. And we do not deny it. Eor 
we bear witness to the truth of this Bible revelation 
when we stand around the opening tomb and solemnly 
repeat the words : " Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, earth 
to earth." Without tracing the cause at present, we 
deal with the fact only, that we are born into this 
world under sentence of death, and that our interven- 
ing life, from birth to death, is only a reprieve and 
respite of the execution of that sentence which is sure 
to come to us at last, even if we should live as long as 
Adam. 

It will be observed that this penalty applies to and 
involves all men, whether good or bad. Death is the 
universal leveler. We all go back to the dust. There 
is no substitute, no discharge in this war, and this not 
for our own but for Adam's transgression. But that 
penalty when executed, discharges that Adamic debt, 
and we are free, though dead. But what of that? 
We can be recreated from the dust. So much for the 
death which has passed on all men. The penalty is 
universal and inexorable, for it is written (in conform- 
ity with our perception of the fact),." No man can by 



112 



any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ran- 
som for him." (Psahns, 49.) 

Xow all this relates to the first death, common to all 
Adam's children, but there is a second death of which 
we also read in Scripture, and that, too, like the first, 
unless intercepted, brings man to the dust again. Now 
a second death implies a second life, since life and 
death are exact opposites, and as the first death for 
Adam's sin has consigned us to dust as we have seen, 
in order to a second death there must be a second life, 
a restoration of the life we have lost, and consequently 
this life is bestowed upon us by resurrection or recon- 
struction from our native dust. We thus see that 
Adam's sin brings all his race to the grave, and but for 
Divine interposition to rescue us from that, fate we 
should have remained forever under the dominion of 
death. To prevent this, and to give our race an op- 
portunity to regain the life we had lost in Adam, our 
benevolent Creator respites the execution of the death 
penalty for the period of our life-time, ^nd affords us 
the means, during that time of probation, of forming a, 
character which will fit and qualify us, if we are will- 
ing, for the second life to which He invites us, and for 
which He supplies the means of preparation and attain- 
ment in that remedial system called religion, now 
known as the gospel of our salvation ; and He graciously 
superadds to the first life we had in Adam the com- 
plement of a new and immortal constitution, physical, 
mental, and moral, by which we shall be never more 
subject to the calamity of death. Thus we learn that 



113 



all men who live in the p.esent life, and who ^ire under 
times of knowledge and with opportunities of gaining 
the future eternal life at the resurrection, are on trial 
for that other and better life. At their resurrection 
both classes are brought into life again, the good to 
receive the promised immortal life, and to dvt^ell forever 
on the new earth, while the bad lose the prize, and, after 
judgment, receive for the deeds done in the body a 
punishment according to their works and die the second 
death, by being remanded back to their parent dust, 
there to remain forever. This punishment is called the 
"second death," their "destruction ceasing^ to be," 
but never, never, their eternal torment, life in misery, 
etc. It is apparent from this Bible testimony that the 
question before us is one of life and death ; that eternal 
life is promised to the righteous, and eternal death is 
threatened to the wicked ; that God, who is both our 
Creator and our Redeemer, has plainly set before us, in 
the message He has sent to us, first, through his ser- 
vants, the prophets and, in these latter days, through 
his Son, the exceeding great and precious promises of 
life and immortality to allure us, on the one hand^ to 
faith and obedience, and, on the other, to deter us by 
threats of his jast displeasure and the loss of these bless- 
ings from rejecting or neglecting the great salvation 
offered in the gospeL He bids us to choose between life 
and death ; hence the language we find in the follow- 
ing, among many scriptures : " I call heaven and earth 
to record to this day against you that I have set before 
you life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore 



114 



choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." 
" The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eter- 
nal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." " If ye live 
after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye, through the spirit, 
mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live." " He 
that doeth the will of God abideth forever." "■ God 
will render to every man according to his deeds. To 
them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for 
glory, honor and immortality, eternal life ; but unto 
them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, 
but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, 
tribulatipn and anguish upon every soul of man that 
doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile, but 
glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh 
good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, for there 
is no respect of persons with God." '' Life and im- 
mortality are brought to light through the gospel." 
" I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and who- 
soever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (bet- 
ter translated, " Shall not die forever"). " All the 
wicked will he destroy." '^ Whose end is destruction." 
" The wicked shall perish,^' be no more, be as though 
they had not been. ' ' They shall be stubble, and the day 
that Cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of 
Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch, 
for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in 
the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts." 

Christ to the Pharisees : " Ye will not come unto me 
that ye might have life." '' As I live, saith the Lord, I 



115 



desire not the death of the wicked, but that he should 
turn from his wickedness and live." " They shall be 
punished with everlasting destruction from the pres- 
ence of the Lord/^ " they shall be cast into the lake of 
fire/' " which is the second death." 

" He that hath the Son hath life" (by promise). " lie 
that hath not the Son hath not life." " God so loved 
the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish but have 
everlasting life." " Wide is the gate and broad is the 
way that leadeth to destruction . . . but straight 
is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life." 
*' The hour is coming in which all that are in their 
graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth ; they 
that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and 
they that have done evil unto the resurrection of dam- 
nation (condemnation)." 

Biit time and space forbid farther citations. The 
reader will see that death, destruction, perishing, the 
second death, being no more, etc., are terms used in 
their plain literal sense and meaning, to express the 
fate of the wicked, but not once is their punishment 
associated with physical torment or eternal misery. If 
it be objected that other passages, such as Lazarus and 
the rich man, etc., teach otherwise, it is answered that 
not a single one of these texts, when fairly interpreted, 
can logically be made to support the obnoxious and re- 
volting theory. It is not practicable here to take up and 
refute what was once, but is happily no longer, the pop- 
ular and accepted doctrine. And yet such a destiny is 



116 



supposed to proceed from a being whose name is Love, 
and whose goodness and wonderful works toward the 
children of men, no less than his word, declare of Him 
that " His mercy eiidiireth forever.^' 

It is true that the Scriptures teach (Matthew 25), that 
certain wicked " go away into everlasting punishment 
and the righteous into life eternal," but it is a gross 
mistake to confound everlasting punishment and ever- 
lasting pain or misery. Death is the highest punish- 
ment for crime known to human laws, and if there were 
no revival from the dead, no escape from the punish- 
ment, it would be obviously an eternal punishment. 
Punishment may consist as well in the deprivation or 
loss of what we most highly value without th^e infliction 
of pain. A criminal condemned to death, who is de- 
prived of his life without pain, as by taking a strong 
opiate or by being bled to death, is as effectually pun- 
ished as if the sentence had been executed with intoler- 
able torment. Self-preservation is the first law of na- 
ture, and to take our life from us is to deprive us of 
that which we hold most dear. It is not, therefore, the 
manner of death but death itself, the loss of life, which 
constitutes the sting and anguish, and if that loss is 
perpetual and unending, if there be no revival from the 
death-state, which thus becomes eternal, is it not an 
eternal punishment ? The punishment of death be- 
comes, therefore, an eternal punishment from its effects. 
As we have seen from one of our citations, it is declared 
that the wicked " shall be punished with everlasting de- 
struction from the presence of the Lord, and from the 



lit 



glory of his power. ' ' Can there be any life in everlast- 
ing destruction ? Another citation is : "' Whose end is, 
destruction." Again, Jude in his general epistle de- 
clares '^ that Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for an 
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.'* 
Now Sodom and Gomorrah are buried beneath the 
waters of the Dead Sea. The fires have been long since 
extinct. How then can they be suffering the vengeance 
of eternal fire, except in tjie eff'ects and consequences of 
the punishment ? 

But in truth and in logic, the theory of endless tor- 
ment sets aside the doctrine of eternal punishment, for 
punishment implies the completion of the process, the 
full infliction of the penalty, and it is not easy to see 
how the wicked being always punishm^, though never 
punishes?, can truly be said to suffer ipunishment j they 
are only punished in part, never in full. 

It would leave the subject incomplete to omit all re- 
ference to the dreadful popular delusions (now also 
rapidly passing into deserved oblivion), respecting hell 
as the place of eternal torment, provided for the large 
majority of our race. Mr. Ingersoll will hardly be sur- 
prised to learn, after so many props have been knocked 
from under him, that this much-abused word has been 
degraded to the support of " Gorgons and chimeras 
dire," which exist only in the distempered fancy of 
the heathen mythologists from whom they have been 
borrowed. If death, utter destruction, being no more, 
is the appointed destination of the incorrigibly wicked, 
we need give ourselves little trouble to explore their 



lis 



depopulated prison house. A few words will suffice to 
sliow the Bible sense and use of the word hell. 

In truth the Bible hell, whether the Hebrew sheol or 
the Greek Hades, is the grave, the general, silent recep- 
tacle for all the dead. Both words bear the same sig- 
nification, viz. : a place covered up, concealed, out of 
sight — an appropriate designation of the grave. With- 
out taking time to present the critical and philological 
proof of this, it is enough to §tate that the translators 
of our Bible give us from the original word the defini- 
tions " grave" and " hell" interchangeably. The Eng- 
lish reader may see this in the marginal readings of the 
reference Bibles. In Psalm 9 we read : " The wicked 
shall be turned into hell" (sheol in the Hebrew and 
Hades in the Greek Septuagint), ^' and all the nations 
that forget God;" while in Genesis 27, when Jacob 
is lamenting the supposed death of Joseph he says : " I 
will go down into the grave unto my son mourning" — 
The same word, in both places. In Isaiah 14 we read : 
'' Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at 
thy coming," and in John 5 the Lord saith : ^' All that 
are in the graves shall come forth," etc. From these 
instances and from many more, such as Acts 2 : 31, 
where Peter on the day of Pentecost cites David's 
prophecy of Christ's resurrection, " Thou wilt not leave 
my soul in hell (i.e., in the grave), and 1 Cor. 15 : 55 : 
" Oh grave [i.e., hell), where is the victory," we learn 
that these words mean invariably the same thing, and 
it is only neccbsary to put the grave for hell wherever 
it occurs, and you have an incontrovertible argument 



119 



and reply to the absurd and pernicious dogma of hell 
(the grave) being a place of eternal torment for the 
wicked. 

Passing from this merely didactic view and looking 
abroad with the eye of wisdom and benevolence on the 
whole sensitive and intelligent creation of God/ it will 
strike us as altogether consistent with his justice and 
mercy that the unhappy beings who justly incur the 
displeasure of their Judge and forfeit the new and im- 
mortal life He offers them, should rather perish en- 
tirely as the final end of a just retribution, than that 
they should, by a Divine and miraculous arrangement, 
be kept alive, not merely for long ages of punishment, 
but even forever and ever in exquisite and indescribable 
torment. That dogma is utterly inconsistent with the 
proper end and object of punishment, and cannot, 
therefore, be true. Reason proclaims certain fixed and 
unalterable purposes to be answered by punishment. 
These are, first, to vindicate the authority of the law- 
giver, and, second, to deter others by the example from 
transgression. How can these objects be effected by the 
infliction of endless torment ? The first object is an- 
swered effectually by the infliction of the prescribed 
penalty for sin, which is death ; for " the wages of sin is 
death." Any cumulative or other penalty would be 
obviously unjust and unworthy of the Lawgiver, and is 
necessarily excluded on that account. How is the 
second object of punishment to be attained on, the 
eternal torment theory? for that admits that the right- 
eous who escape the penalty are to become partakers of 



120 



the Divine nature and are immortal and incapable of 
sinning. Surely it is not necessary to hold up to them 
the terrible warning afforded by the agonies of the 
damned, for they cannot transgress and do not need 
that warning. For whose benefit then is the example 
to be furnished ? Obviously there is no use, no object 
or purpose to be answered, in any rational or righteous 
scheme of compensation, beyond a just retribution — " a 
punishment according to their deeds" — and as these are 
finite and terminable so the penalty must have an end. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF LIFE, DEATH, AiTD IM- 
MORTALITY. 

" If a man die, shall he live again ?" — Job. 

It has been my object so far in defending the truth 
of the Holy Scriptures to prove their modern assailant, 
Mr. Ingersoll, to be fallacious in his premises and false 
in his conclusions. How far I have succeeded in this 
task it is for the reader to decide. This little work 
would fall short, however, of accomplishing its object, 
and would seem to be incomplete, without some clear 
demonstration of the truth — some convincing develop- 
ment of the Bible doctrine of man's origin, constitu- 
tion and destiny. 

The history of our race shows that three great ques- 
tions in every age of the world, have appealed to the 



121 



thoughtful intelligence of every human being, with the 
most intense and absorbing interest. These are : 

Whence am I? 

What am 19 

Whither do I gof 

To answer these questions, to give us this knowledge, 
has called forth the efforts of the wisest and most 
learned of mankind. Books have been written, ser- 
mons preached, and theories advanced to give a satis- 
factory solution to the great problem of humanity, and 
yet we are forced to admit that so far the wisdom and 
boasted learning of the world have proved wholly inade- 
quate to solve the mystery. The reason seems obvious, 
as soon as it is stated. It is because the answer to 
these questions has not been sought where alone it can 
be found, viz., in the Word of God and not in the wis- 
dom and philosophy of man. 

Macaulay in his Essay on '' Ranke's History of the 
Popes" [EdMiirgh Revietv), says: " As respects natural 
religion — revelation being for the present altogether left 
out of the question — it is not easy to see that a philoso- 
pher of the present day is more favorably situated than 
Thales or Simonides" (with respect to theology). " He 
has before him just the same evidence of design in the 
structure of the universe which the early Greeks had. 
We say just the same, for the discoveries of modern 
astronomers and anatomists have really added nothing to 
the force of that argument which a reflecting mind 
finds in every beast, bird, insect, fish, leaf, flower and 
shell. The reasoning by which Socrates in Xenophon's 



122 



hearing confuted the little Atheist Aristodemus, is ex- 
actly the reasoning of ' Paley's Natural Theology.' 
Socrates makes precisely the same use of the statues of 
Polycletus and the pictures of Zeuxis, which Paley 
makes of the watch. As to the other great question — 
the question what becomes of man after death— we do 
not see that a highly educated European, left to Jiis un- 
assisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a^ 
Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one of the many sci- 
ences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians, throws 
the smallest light on the state of the soul after the ani- 
mal life is extinct. In truth all the philosophers, an- 
cient and modern, who have attempted, luitliout tlie help 
of revelation, to prove the immortality of man, from 
Plato down to Franklin, appear to us to have failed de- 
plorably." 

So recently as the year 1875, Dr. John W. Draper, 
the learned author of the work' entitled a '' History of 
the Conflict Between Religion and Science," says truly, 
in his preface : " We still deal with the same questions 
about which the old philosophers of Greece and Rome 
disputed : What is God ? What is the soul ? What is 
the world ? How is it governed ? Have we any stand- 
ard or criterion of truth ? And the thoughtful reader 
will earnestly ask, are our solutions of these problems 
any better than theirs ?" 

In short, the conclusions of all the philosophers in 
their efforts to solve these questions without the Bible 
may be summed up in the confession of David Hume, in 
his ••'* Treatise on Human Nature," Vol. i. p. 458 : '' I 



123 



am affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude 
in . which I am plac^^d by my philosophy. . . . 
Where am I or what ? From what causes do I derive 
my existence, and to what condition shall I return ? I 
am confounded with these questions and begin to fancy 
myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, en- 
vironed with the deepest darkness." 

These confessions from Mr. Ingersoll's highest 
authorities — the wise men of the earth — show us that it 
has been reserved to Divine Wisdom to dispel this mys- 
tery and darkness. 

The problem of man's constitution and destiny is ex- 
plicable only in the light which comes from the Bible 
— the Word of God. We are shut up to that conclusion. 
What sayeth the Scripture ? How readest thou ? Let 
us briefly answer. 

I. As to man's origin. The Bible plainly declares, 
^* the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
man became a living soul." 

What can be clearer and simpler than this declara- 
tion ? Here is contained in one sentence the revelation 
of a truth which philosophers and even theologians 
have for ages past and through multitudinous volumes 
of human lore, been seeking for in vain. 

When we analyze this sentence and compare it with 
all existing theories of man's origin, we note : 

1. That God made man — not his body or his soul 
only — from the dust of the ground. 

2. That as yet, and when he was made to stand up 



124 



before his Maker, he was mere inert matter, as a loco- 
motive engine just turned out of the shop and with all 
its mechanical parts perfect, placed on the railway track 
ready to work when its builder would start it, but mo- 
tionless, awaiting the external force which was to set it 
in motion. Thus when man was inspired by the breath 
of life he became, and is yet, alive — " a living soul." 

3. That when that external power is applied, which 
in Adam's case was the breath of life, no longer 
motionless, he exhibited all the powers of life and mo- 
tion which belong to the living soul as we see now. 
Whatever meaning, theological or otherwise, may be 
attached to the word sotd, which there is not time here 
to consider, we must all admit from the testimony be- 
fore us, that man in his creation was himself the liv- 
ing soul, and not declared here or elsewhere in the Bible 
to be an immortal soul, or even possessed of a soul. 
He became a living soul by the action of the breath of 
life through his nostrils, upon his organized physical 
form. Hence he and all creatures formed like himself 
from the dust of the ground, when energized by the 
breath of life — the vital air we breathe — become breath- 
ing animals, and are therefore living souls. This is 
expressed to us in the primary meaning of the word 
soul, which signifies a breathing creature, without any 
reference to the nature or duration of its existence. As 
such it is applied in the Scripture to man, and to 
beasts, birds, fishes, etc., in short, to every creature 
that lives by breathing. 

In Genesis 7 : 15 it is written of the animals that 



125 



they '* went in unto 'Noah in the ark, two and two, of 
alt flesh wherein is the hreatli of life,^^ the same that 
Adam had ; and Ibid, verse 22d, that " All in whose 
nostrils was the breath of Ufe,"^ of all that was in the 
dry land, died." 

Without pretending to define the mode in which 
Adam inhaled, through his nostrils, the breath of life, 
we know now by experience and observation that the 
first act of the new-born infant in coming into the 
world is to breathe the vital air, and thereby to become 
alive and to continue to live. 

So much for the origin of man. In common with 
his fellow creatures of the animal race he was in the be- 
ginning, and is now, by the wondrous mechanism of the 
Divine Architect, an organized mass of animated dust, 
differing from his fellow animals chiefly in the superior- 
ity of his organization, in his possession of superior in- 
tellect, and m his susceptibility to a higher destiny. 

The New Testament concurs with the Old (G-enesis 
2 : 7, with 1 Corinthians 15 : 45) in this account of 
man's origin, declaring him to be formed, like the whole 
animal creation, " from the dust of the ground — a liv- 
ing soul and of the earth — earthy." 

II. The nature and constitutio7i of man, 

As we have seen it was by the breath of life that 
Adam became a living soul, so all the animal creation 
became by the same process living souls also, and we 
learn in Genesis 1 : 26 that Adam was made their 

* In Job 27 : 8 this breutli of life is called " Tlie spirit of God 
in my nostrils." 



126 



king — had '^ dominion oyer them all and over all the 
earth." Both classes of creation had life, but they had 
no period fixed for its duration, and were wholly igno- 
rant of death. The lower animal creation remains in 
this condition of blissful ignorance to the present hour. 
Not &o man. As the king of the animal race and the 
Lord of the whole earth, his capacity for his high posi- 
tion was to be tested and tried. If he proved faithful 
and obedient to his Sovereign, the Lord God, he would 
show himself worthy to fill the exalted position he held 
in the creation and in the earth over which he had been 
given dominion ; and as he is not qualified to command 
who has not himself learned to obey, an occasion must 
be provided to test his loyalty to his Superior. Hence 
he was placed under law and exposed to the temptation 
recorded in G-enesis 2 : 16 etc. : " And the Lord God 
commanded the man, saying : ' Of every tree of the 
garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; 
for in the day thou eatest thereof (dying) thou shalt 
surely die.' " 

Here we see death to be the penalty denounced for 
violation of this, the only law to which the first man 
was subjected. It is written accordingly, " The wages 
of sin is death." 

We know the result of the first man's trial. He did 
not abide the test. He disobeyed the law and thereby 
became a mortal sinner. His fall brought 

" Death into the world 
And all our woe," 



127 



This act of disobedience changed his whole relations 
toward his gracious Creator ani Benefactor, and ren- 
dered him unfit for the high rank and dignity to which 
he had been called, and for further personal association 
with his Maker. He was accordingly banished from 
the Divine presence and driven from the g rden. The 
reason for this last act, his expulsion, is thus given : 
" And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become 
as one of us, to know good and evil : and now, lest he put 
forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, 
and live for ever : therefore the Lord God sent him forth 
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence 
he was taken. So he drove out the man : and he placed 
at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubim, and a 
flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way 
of tlie tree of life." (Gen. 3 : 22, etc.) 

As man rebelled against his Sovereign, so his subjects 
revolted against his rule. The beasts of the field no 
longer rendered him a willing obedience, and the earth 
— his dwelling-place — no longer a garden of delights, 
yielding her fruits spontaneously in prodigal abundance, 
brought forth thistles and thorns to vex him, and gave 
him bread only in sorrow and in the sweat of his face. 
He was reminded of his humble origin, the dust of the 
ground, and told that the death penalty he had incurred 
would, when executed, consign him again to his parent 
dust ; in the words of his sentence, " dust thou art and 
unto dust shalt thou return." This is undoubtedly the 
Bible and the only true account of man's origin anc] 
destiny as the offspring of the first Adam orily. 



128 



Again inviting the reader's candid analysis of the law 
we have cited and its penalty, we see that in the prohi- 
bition of the forbidden fruit a test of Adam's obedience 
was contrived. The act prohibited might have been in 
itself innocent or indifferent, but being a positive law, 
emanating from the Divine will, its criminality consisted 
in its being a violation of God's command and an 
affront to the Divine Majesty. The narrative shows ns 
that the act sprung from disbelief of God's Word and 
the belief, instead, of the falsehood of the tempter's as- 
surance, " That he should not surely die." 

We see also that the penalty, death, was not immedi- 
ately inflicted. All agree that the marginal reading of 
verse 16 should be " dyimg, thou shalt surely die," 
which gives scope for the Divine benignity in respiting 
the execution of the sentence on the culprit for nine 
hundred and thirty years— the full term of Adam's life 
^-when he died. This reprieve was for a purpose. 
That Adam's race might not be left in hopeless despair, 
a second Adam, " the seed of the woman," was prom- 
ised, who should nltimately crush the serpent's head 
and deliver man from the continued bondage "of sin and 
death. This brings us to our third question, 

III. Whither do we go 9 

To the grave. 

The Bible answers this question. It is necessary to 
observe that if there had been no second Adam there 
would have been no second or future life ; for death 
is a complete process, which involves in its broad sweep 
our entire being, and we argue that as the command 



129 



and the prohibition in Eden were addressed to the 
whole man, body, soul, and spirit, the tuJiole man was 
involved in the transgression and suffers the penalty, 
which is death. 

It is no answer to this reasoning to say, with the 
philosophers and schoolmen, that man is inherently im- 
mortal, and that although the penalty of death consigns 
his body to the dusi, that other part of him, his soul or 
spirit, escapes the death penalty and survives in a con- 
scious existence forever. We reply tliat apart from the 
entire absence of any sach statement in the Bible, and 
the many proved passages of Holy Writ which expressly 
declare the contrary, such as " TJiou shalt surely die," 
" The soul that sinneth it shall die,'*' " The wages of 
sin is death," etc., we have the striking fact, of obvious 
significance, that as the whole man, body, soul, and 
spirit, was addressed in the command and prohibition, 
and the whole man committed the transgression, so the 
whole man, and not a part of him, must necessarily bear 
the penalty, which is death. 

This conclusion is abundantly supported by Holy 
Writ, which elsewhere declares, " That which befalleth 
the sons of men befalleth beasts (animals) ; even one 
thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the 
other; yea, they have all one breath ; so that a man hath 
no pre-eminence above a beast ; for all is vanity. All go 
unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust 
again." (Eccles. 3 : 18-21.) From these premises it re- 
sults inevitably that neither Adam nor his posterity had 
any promise, claim, or just expectation of a future life 



130 



by reason of the Adamic nature, inherently or other- 
wise. The death penalty levels all his posterity to the 
dust of the ground, depriving his race of all hope of 
life, derived from him, and but for the interposition of 
the second Adam they would remain forever in the grave 
without one survivor of the common wreck. 

This second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Lord, has now 
appeared, and by His superior strength and virtue, 
through faith and obedience, has triumphed over temp- 
tation, sin, and deaths as shown by His resurrection 
unto immortal life, and jHis exaltation to God's right 
hand, whence He will come a second time unto salva- 
tion to those who look for Him and love His appearing. 
By Him all of Adam's race who, like Him, become 
faithful and obedient to the gospel He has announced, 
though not exempt meanwhile from the death penalty 
which they incur as the first Adam's descendants, shall 
arise from the dead, and by this re-creation to a new life 
at His coming and kingdom, attain to that immortal- 
ity which the first Adam never possessed and could not 
therefore transmit to his posterity. 

Thus we see that man has a present and an ulterior 
destiny before him. First, his destination is to death and 
the grave ; he returns to the dust from which he came. 
Second, if he prove firm and loyal to God's Word under 
the trial of his faith and obedience in the present pro- 
bationary state of good and evil, he will be rescued from 
the captivity of death and the grave, and by resurrection 
from his native dust at the second coming of Christ, 
attain to a new and immortal life bestowed by Him whp 



i3i 



alone is the resurrection and the life. Like Adam, man 
is also on trial. God does not deny to Adam's race, to 
whom his law is given, the same opportunity to gain 
immortality and have dominion over the earth and its 
inhabitants which was offered to him. He says to 
all such what he said to Cain at the altar, though 
guilty before Him, "Why art thou wroth? Why is 
thy countenance fallen ? If thou doest well, shalt thou 
not be accepted ?" 

Adam and Christ stand at the head of two systems. 
These represent respectively death and life. St. Paul, 
certainly a competent commentator, presents the sharp 
contrast between them in his famous argument in 
I. Corinthians 15, styling them the first and the second 
Adam. 

He says : " The first Adam was made a living soul ; 
the last Adam was made a quickening (life-giving) 
spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, 
but that which is natural ;* and afterward that which is 
spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the 
second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, 
such are they also that are earthy ; and as is the heav- 
enly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we 
have borne the image of the earthy (during our present 
Adamic life), we shall also bear (in the future life) the 
image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that 
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; 
neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, 
I show you a mystery [i.e., I explain to you a secret) : 

* McKniglit translates it " animal or soul-ical — the soul-man." . 



132 



we shall not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed, 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump ; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead (not 
their bodies only or their supposed immortal souls, but 
the dead — men and women) shall be raised incorrupt- 
ible, and we shall be changed.* For this corruptible 
must p.ut on incorruption, and this mortal must put on 
immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on 
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immor- 
tality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is 
written. Death is swallowed up in victory. death, 
where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy victory ?" 

In another part of the same full-proof chapter he rea- 
sons convincingly again : '' Since by man (Adam) came 
death, by man (Christ) came also the resurrection of 
the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive. But every man in his own 
order : Christ the first fruits ; afterward they that are 
Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when 
He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even 
the Father ; when He shall have put down all rule and 
all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath 
put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that 
shall be destroyed is death." 

Obliged by the want of time and space to curtail our 
proofs of the proposition that it is by the resurrection 
and not till then that man will awake from his uncon- 
scious death-sleep to the new and immortal life promised 

* See parallel passage in 1 Thess. 4 : 15, which reads : "We 
which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord," etc. 



138 



to the righteous, or to phrase it in exact Scripture lan- 
guage, that " when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, 
then (and not till then) shall we appear with Him in 
glory," we must rely on the intelligence of the reader, 
Bible in hand, to fill in by evidence in detail the great 
argument which here of necessity is only briefly out- 
lined. 

As a friend of truth and an humble defender of the 
faith once delivered to the saints, the writer deplores 
the mistake which the old philosophers and their mod- 
ern followers and copyists have made (honestly no 
doubt), in attributing immortality to all men, because 
of their Adamic origin and nature, and without any 
reference to the Prince of Life, to Him who is 'Hhe 
resurrection and the life, who hath brought life and 
immortality to light through the gospel, and who only 
hath immortality." Surely it is time for us all to learn 
the simple lesson of Holy Writ that " the wages of sin 
is death, and the gift of God is eternal life, through 
Jesus Christ, our Lord." 

Now we argue that if, on the one hand, these wages 
be death, then surely it is not eternal misery in hell, 
and on the other hand, if eternal life be the gift of 
God through Jesus Christ, surely all men do not possess 
it without reference or relationship to Him. 

In the Bible we have the beginning and the end, the 
Alpha and Omega of the wondrous system of divine 
love, and rnercy, and wisdom, and power. In Genesis, 
chap. 1 : 1, we read: "In the beginning God created 
the heaven and the earth," and in Revelation, chap. 



134 



21 : 6, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for 
the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. 
. . . Behold I make all things new." The wonder- 
ful book opens with the creation of the world and 
closes with the promise of another and a new world. 
The present and past ages, with the coming days of hu- 
man existence, span the gap between the present and 
the coming cosynos. The present life is the true inter- 
mediate state of man. He lives under a provisional, 
not a permanent government ; the organization of the 
heaven and the earth in which we live, with all its physi- 
cal, civil, and social elements, forms a means to an end 
yet future. The world and it's inhabitants await new 
decrees of Divine destiny. When these are executed 
the design of the Great Architect in the creation of man 
and his dwelling-place will have been accomplished, and 
will be read and known of all men. His wisdom, 
power, and love will be vindicated and declared, and 
the grand jubilee of earth's redemption shall be an- 
nounced in the royal proclamation, " There shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain. The former things have passed 
away. Every curse shall be removed," and " Behold, 
the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell 
with them, and they shall be His people ; and God Him- 
self shall be with them, and be their God." 



135 



CONCLUSION. 

Nothing manifests more clearly the recklessness of 
assertion^ the unfairness, the entire incapacity to rea- 
son, and the blind contempt for popular intelligence, 
than the latest Lecture delivered by Mr. Tngersoll, since 
the foregoing pages were written. On Sunday, the 1st 
of May, at the Academy of Music in New York, he 
lectured on " The Great Infidels,''' as reported in the 
New York Herald. In it he presumes to say without 
scruple : ^' There is no recorded instance where the 
uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed by Divine 
command ; not one instance where suffering innocence 
has been saved by God's interference.'^ Now, Mr. 
Ingersoll mast have known at the very moment he 
uttered this statement, that the Bible, in disproof of it, 
gives almost innumerable historical and " recorded in- 
stances" of such interference. Is he willingly ignorant 
or consciously oblivious of G-od's interference in behalf 
of Noah and Lot, of the history of Abraham and 
Isaac, of Joseph and of Moses, of Daniel in the lion's 
den, of the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, 
of Mordecai and Esther, of David from Saul's murderous 
rage, and of the whole nation of Israel from the pur- 
suit of the Egyptians at the Red Sea, not enumerating 
the more modern instances in the New Testament in 
the -lives of the apostles ? With equal recklessness he 
classes such men as Jefferson, Franklin, etc., as reject- 
ers of God and the Bible, when he should know the 



136 



contrary ; choosing arbitrarily and to suit the neces- 
sities 01 his position to write down every man, like 
himself, an Atheist, who may condemn some particular 
form or dogma of religious faith or practice, either 
Catholic or Protestant. 

As to Thomas Jefferson, the charge of being an infi- 
del in Mr. Ingersoll's sense of the term is flatly opposed 
by the following emphatic declaration of that great man 
in respect to the value of the Bible. In one of his pub- 
lished letters, he says : " I have always said, and always 
will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume 
will make better citizens, better fathers, and better 
husbands." 

As to Dr. Franklin, the same charge is repelled by 
his strong testimony as follows : "As to Jesus of l^aza- 
reth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think 
the system of morals and His religion as He left them 
to us is the best the world ever saw or is likely to see." 

We all remember, too, Franklin's eccentric but sig- 
nificant inscription, left behind him for an epitaph, in 
which, as showing his faith in the Bible, he wrote that 
although in death, like the cover of an old volume, his 
body should reappear at the resurrection " in a new 
edition, revised and corrected by the Author." 

The French Diderot, too, cited by Mr. Ingersoll in 
the same class, declared, as if in involuntary admira- 
tion of the holy book : " No better lessons than those 
of the Bible can I, teach my child." 

But Mr. Ingersoll's audacity reaches the climax when 
he actually asserts that Christ was an infidel, saying : 



137 



'* I like Him because He was an infidel, because He 
could see the frailties of the Jewish worship." Such 
insane ravings need no reply ; they carry along with 
them their own refutation. They stamp their author, 
however, with folly and shame. The only apology we 
can, in mercy, invent for him in this instance is his 
profound ignorance of the Bible and of the history and 
mission of Christ. So far from His condemning the 
Jewish worship, He conformed to it when it was in ac- 
cordance with the Law of Moses, declaring that He 
came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil 
them ; that not one jot or tittle of the Law should pass 
away till all be fulfilled. The Scriptures expressly de- 
clare that " the Law (of Moses) was our schoolmaster 
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by 
faith ; but after that faith is come, we are no longer 
under a schoolmaster" (GalatiansS :24, 25). But when 
He died on the cross saying, " It is finished,''^ and when 
the veil of the Temple was rent in twain, to indicate to 
the Jews that the Temple worship had been abolished, 
and by His death, resurrection, and ascension all its 
shadowy rites had been merged and fulfilled in Him 
whom they typified, the Law had passed away and the 
Gospel, which was its substance, had taken its place. 
Henceforth the Law ceased to possess any binding force 
even for the Jews, much less for Gentiles, who were 
never under its yoke. 

As St. Paul did not disdain to support his argument 
by quoting to the Athenians the testimony of " certain 
of their own poets' ' to the same conclusion, we may f ol- 



138 



low his example in presenting to the reader the follow- 
ing auxiliary authority of the '^ wise men" of this gen- 
eration. 

From " Atheism and the Church," by G. H. Curties, 
in the English Contemjporary Review, we extract the 
following : " No branch of science seems to consider it- 
self complete, nowadays, until it has issued at last into 
the vexed ocean of theology. Thus Biology writes lay 
sermons in Professor Huxley ; Physics acknowledges 
itself almost Christian in Professor Tyndall ; Anthropol- 
ogy claims to be religious in Mr. Darwin ; and Logic, in 
Mr. Spencer, confesses that a religious system is a nor- 
mal and essential factor in every evolving society. It 
is only the second-rate men of science that loudly vaunt 
their ability to do without religion altogether and pro- 
claim their fixed and unchangeable resolve for its entire 
suppression. As well resolve to suppress the Gulf 
Stream or the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. If the 
horizon of man's thought is bounded on all sides by 
mystery it is in simple obedience to the law of his na- 
ture that he gives some shape to that mystery. The old 
school divines meant what they said, that ^ Theology was 
the queen and mistress of the sciences,' and Dr. Pusey 
in his University sermon (November, 1878) declares, 
' Theology accepts every certain conclusion of physical 
science as man's unfolding of God's book of nature.' " 

The foregoing pages have been written in the earnest 
hope of arresting the pernicious influence of Mr. Inger- 
soll's teachings on the minds of the ignorant, the young, 
and the thoughtless, who are easily led captive by the 



139 



reckless freedom and tlie bold and florid style of the 
orator. It is not possible, we suppose, to enable Mr. 
Ingersoll to see the truth we have laid before him. 
Such men are not often convertible or even convincible. 
They are either too wise to learn or too old to reform. 
They are leaders, and must not allow their disciples to 
discover their ignorance or mistakes. Hence they rest 
under a disability, in some sense, to see or to decide 
according to the light of truth. They boast of the lar- 
gest liberty, but are in reality slaves to their prejudices 
or preconceptions, to their conceit and vanity. 

Mr. Ingersoll boasts that these lectures have excited 
the "admiration of the intelligent." Whether this is 
true we have not the means of knowing. It depends on 
his own assertion, which we have had abundant reason 
to see must always be taken with many grains of allow- 
ance. He lectures for pay, and it is said he finds the 
business very remunerative. It is perfectly allowable 
for any teacher of good things, who seeks to add to the 
sum of human happiness and to benefit his fellows, to 
receive compensation for his services. Such men render 
an honorable and honest quid pro quo. But can any 
man (Mr. Ingersoll not excepted) show that his disci- 
ples or hearers are benefited in the least degree by his 
attempted proof of atheism ? Does atheism heal the 
sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, enrich the 
poor, inform the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, stimu- 
late the virtuous, educate the masses, or make men 
wiser or better as citizens, fathers, husbands, sons, 
brothers, or friends ? 



140 



His religion of humanity confesses its utter helpless- 
ness beyond the present brief mortal life. Life is its 
narrow boundary, and death is its goal. Shadows, 
clouds, and darkness rest upon all beyond. N"ot a 
spark of light, not a ray of hope cheers the fainting 
mind during man's brief and fxeeting existence. Mr. 
Ingersoll's address at the funeral of his brother tells the 
sad tale. It is a " wailing cry" of utter despair. It is 
the stifled moan from the dark and dreary tomb. Mid- 
night darkness shrouds the scene, and his utterances are 
as contradictory as his creed is cold and cheerless. Hear 
him, at the grave of his brother : 

*' While yet in love with life and raptured with the 
world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet 
after all it may be best just in the happiest, sunniest 
hour of all the Yoyage, while eager winds are kissing 
every sail, to dash against the unseen rock and, in an 
instant, hear the billows roar a sunken ship. For 
whether in mid- sea or among the breakers of the 
farther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each 
and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is 
rich with love and every moment jewelled with a joy, 
will at its close become a tragedy as sad, and deep, and 
dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery 
and death. . . . 

" He climbed the heights and left all superstitions 
far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawn- 
ing of a grander day. . . .A thousand times I've 
heard him quote the words : ^ For justice all place a 
temple, and all season summer' " (whatever that may 



141 



mean). . . . *' Life is a narrow vale between the 
cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in 
vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud and 
the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From 
the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes 
no word, but in the night of death, hope sees a star and 
listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. . . . 
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach 
of death for the return of health, whispered with his 
latest breath, ' I am better now.' Let us believe, in 
spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears, that 
these dear words are true of all the countless dead." 

Such is the atheist's end — in utter absence of all faith 
and hope — in wailing despair ! 

In the midst of the wonders of creation Mr. Ingersoll 
demands the proof of a Creator, as the simpleton at 
noonday would ask if there is a sun. 

The following little poem by JoHi^- Masoi^ Good, 
author of the " Book of Nature," may serve to rebuke 
and confound the boasted wisdom of atheism, and teach 
a lesson which, when once learned, exalts a simple child 
in the scale of being above the wisest undevout philo- 
sopher that ever lived. 

THE DAISY. 

Not worlds on worlds in phalanx deep 
Keed we to prove that God is here, 

The daisy fresh from winter's sleep 
Tells of His hand in lines as clear. 



14-2 

For who but He who arched the skies, 
And pours the dayspring' s living flood. 

Wondrous alike in all He tries, 

Could rear the daisy' s purple bud ; • 

Mould its green cup, its wiry stem, 
Its fringed border nicely spin. 

And cut the gold-embussed gem. 
That, set in silver, gleams within ? 

And fling it, unrestrained and free, 
O'er hill and vale and desert sod, 

That man, where'er he walks,may see 
In every step the stamp of God, 



THE EIJ^D. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



PART 1 



TJIE INGERSOLL-BLACK COKTliOVJiJRSY 
REVIEWED. 



TIIIC BIBLE VINDICATED ON ITS OWN PBEMISES OF RICA HON 
AND REVELATION, AND NOT ON THE SANDY FOUN- 
DATION OF HITMAN WISDOM AND AUTIIOBITy. 



To the Law and to the Testimony: If they speak not according 
to this Word^ it is because there is no light in them.— le at An. 

J receive not testimony from man.— "Words of Jesus. 



18Sd. 



145 



THE INGEBSOLL-BLACK CONTBOYEBSY 
BEVIEWED. 



Since the publication of the first edition of this work 
in June, 1881, Mr. Bohert J. IngersoU has been brought 
to bay in his wild raid on all the religions in the world, 
while "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up 
and down in it — seeking, like a roaring lion, whom he 
may devour." His boastful challenge to debate the truth 
of the Christian Religion has been at length accepted. 
This champion of the Christian faith appears in the 
Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, a distinguished citizen of 
Pennsylvania, justly eminent among his countrymen, in 
both State and National aifairs — an able lawyer and 
jurist, filling for years a high judicial position in his 
native state, and more recently the office of Attorney 
General of the United States, on the wider theatre of 
the Federal Government at Washington. The abili- 
ties of Judge Black, as Statesman, Jurist, and Scholar, 
especially skilled by his long experience and training as 
a logician, leave nothing, so far as such acquisitions 
confer qualifications, to be desired in scholastic learning 
and forensic skill requisite for the task undertaken. To 



146 

this it must be added that Judge Black is an honest and 
earnest believer of the system he undertakes to defend, 
having been for years a member of the denominational 
religious fraternity known as the Disciples, or the "Christ- 
ian Church." The pages of the North American Heview 
of date August and November, 1881, present to the pub- 
lic the initial numbers on either side, of this famous dis- 
cussion under the head of "The Christian Religion." 

The controversy thus begun has come, however to an 
abrupt conclusion. Judge Black complained that the 
terms on which he had agreed to discuss with Mr. In- 
gersoll, the authenticity of the Bible and the truth of the 
Christian Religion, contained a stipulation that his 
replies should always appear in the same number of the 
Review, which contained his opponent's attacks, so that, 
as he said, "the antidote should follow the poison." He 
alleges that this contract was broken by the Editor, and 
hence he declined to continue the controversy. 

It may seem bold, but it is not too much to say, in the 
interest of truth, that this result is perhaps not to be 
regretted, for as each disputant stood on false premises 
and so held a false position, persistence in the debate 
under such disabilities would have issued in a mere log- 
omachy, a war of words, which, without being convincing 
and conclusive, would, at best, have shown only a pre- 
ponderance of argument on the one side or the other, 
leaving the truth in abeyance. This conclusion will be 
apparent for reasons which will presently be stated, and 
meantime it is scarcely necessary to remind the intelli- 



gent reader, that no conclusion in argument can be sound 
or satisfactory, which rests upon defective premises. No 
vindication of the Christian religion can be successful 
which misstates or ignores the foundation of the system, 
and no assault on its integrity, however violent, is con- 
istent or effectual which does not grapple with the pillars 
which support the structure. 

The grand peculiarity — the marked characteristic — of 
the Bible religion, that which distinguishes it from all 
other creeds, Pagan and Heathen, Infidel and Orthodox, 
Catholic and Protestant, is the Revelation of a future 
life to man, by the resurrection from the dead, and hy 
that means only. This Guiding Star in every intelli- 
gent reasoner's horizon seems to have escaped the atten- 
tion" of both these combatants. Yet it is certainly true 
that all other creeds and religions and all sects in moral 
philosophy, rest their doctrine of a future life to man, 
not on the Bible basis of the Resurrection, but on their 
belief in the inherent immortality of the soul. This 
huge sophism lies at the bottom of all systems of error 
in religion and moral philosophy. We may be pardoned, 
therefore, for dwelling, for a moment, on the pi-oof of 
this position, for, if neither disputant is awakened to the 
value of this controlling factor in the discussion, they 
have undertaken a vam task. 

It is familiar knowledge that of the seven Bibles or 
sacred books of all known religions in the world, each 
one, except the Christian Bible, avows the creed and 
doctrine of the inherent immortality of the human soul 



)li 



or life, and the corresponding, consequential dogma of 
the future eternal torment of the wicked class of our 
race. The Koran of the Mahommedans, the Eddas of the 
Scandinavians, the Try Pitikes of the Buddhists, the Five 
Kings of the Chinese, the three Vedas of the Hindoos 
and the Zendavesta of the Persians, all, without excep- 
tion, teach the immortal soul theory and are profoundly 
silent, as they are profoundly ignorant, of the Scripture 
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which our Holy 
Scriptures, the Christian Bible, reveals to us, as the only 
pathway to future life. It is this Sacred book that 
propounds, with the irresistible authority of both Reason 
and Revelation, the grand scheme of Divine wisdom 
and love for the redemption of our race from the domin- 
ion of death and the bondage of the grave. 

It is true, and we do not deny that every intelligent 
Christian "professor" avows his faith in the resurrection 
of the dead, or, as he prefers to call it, "the resurrection 
of the hody^^ — a form of expression which allows room 
to include also his faith in the immortality of the soul. 
He makes the mistake of supposing that this dual creed 
is homogeneous and harmless, whereas it is easily shown 
that the two are "wide as the poles apart," and cannot be 
reconciled in any rational and consistent theory of man's 
creation, constitution and destiny. The one creed affirms 
that man, being immortal can never die ; the other, 
affirms of man, "Thou shalt surely die." The one affirms 
every human soul will live forever. The other. "The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die." The one declares, " *Dust 



149 



thou art and to dnst return est' was not spoken o± the 
soul." The other, addressing the first living soul, saith, 
"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." The 
one, to man, "Thou shalt ascend to Heaven as soon as 
thou diest." The other, "No man ascendeth unto 
Heaven but the Son of Man who came down from 
Heaven." The one, that the dead are alive and in a con- 
cious state — in Heaven or Hell, Paradise or Purgatory, 
The other, "The dead know not anything. In that very 
day [of death] their thoughts perish." "There is no 
device, nor work, nor knowledge in the grave whither 
thou goest." and so onward to almost indefinite exten- 
sion, the broad contrast continues. Like parallels, the 
lines never meet. 

Under the influence of this false theory — of this mis- 
taken interpretation of man's constitution and destiny, 
however sincerely entertained — Judge Black, in the dis- 
cussion, yields to his opponent the vantage-ground of 
confounding him by the adverse testimony of his own 
witness — the Bible — which everywhere testifies against 
him. By adopting this pagan dogma, current in Egypt 
and the East, the dark land of superstition and idolatry,- 
and imported by Thales, Socrates and Plato into the Gre_ 
cian mythology, and thence, unhappily, boldly interpola . 
ted into the Christian's creed, Judge Black, logically and 
of necessity, virtually surrenders the Christian's citadel 
— the resurrection of the dead — and becomes the advo- 
cate or apologist of the eternal torment theory, which is 
its inevitable sequence : For if every man be immortal, 



150 

the bad must live forever in the pnnishment to whicli 
divine justice consigns them at the judgment day. With 
them, to live forever is to suffer forever. This last enorm- 
ity is naturally seized on by Mr. Ingersoll as an invincible 
weapon of warfare, and easily converted into an unan- 
swerable argument against the divine mercy and justice, 
and is regarded by all fair and honest men as the odium 
theologicum of the Christian's faith. It thus becomes a 
rampart behind which, as an impregnable Gibraltar, the 
infidel hurls his most effective bolts against the Bible as 
the supposed source and authority pi that most unmerci- 
ful and revolting dogma, although it be a charge of 
which the blessed book is wholly guiltless ; for no such 
doctrine is found in its pages. 

Again, being confessedly uninformed as to the origin, 
uses and continuance of evil for a time in the present 
and future state. Judge Black does not meet, but is 
obliged to ignore or evade, his opponent's argument 
based upon the imputed malevolence of the Creator dis- 
played in the same endless misery creed. That we may 
not be suspected of doing him an injustice, we quote 
Judge Black's words in replying to Mr. Ingersoll's first 
paper. He says : "Why man is made to fill this par- 
ticular place in the scale of creation, lower than the 
angels, yet far above the brutes, not passionless and pure, 
not mere machines — able to stand, yet free to fall; know- 
ing the right, yet accountable for going wrong ; gifted 
with reason, yet impelled by self-lov§ to exercise the fac- 
ulty — these are questions upon which we may have our 



151 

speculative opinions, hnJ laiowledge is out of our reach?'* 
* * * * '■'■Out ignorance of the whole scheme 
makes us poor critics upon the small part that comes 
within our limited perceptions." — p. 133. Again, in ans- 
wering Mr. Ingersoll's objection that "the punishment of 
sinners in eternal hell is excessive," he says: "The 
future of the soul is a subject on which we have very 
dark views. * * * ^q revelation has lifted 
the veil between time and eternity. * * * * 
Doubtless many of us are in error, but how can Mr. In- 
gersoU enlighten us?" — p. 148. 

If his views upon suchsubjects are shrouded in "dark-- 
ness," if "many of us are in error," if we have "no revela- 
tion," and "knowledge is out of our reach," how can he 
gainsay any of Mr. Ingersoll's injurious charges ? What 
advantage hath Christ over Belial ? What difference be- 
tween him that believeth and an infidel ? Who can affirm 
— who can deny — seeing that both are equally in the dark, 
and are, at best, merely agnostics, or know-nothings? 

To carry into the argument such ignorance of the 
Bible doctrine of time and eternity, and the damaging 
weight of the dogma of the eternal misery of any of 
God's creatures, so justly obnoxious to all our ideas of 
human justice even, and so revolting to Divine mercy 
and benevolence, is to cripple and at last, under the 
weight of his armor, to overwhelm its champion in dis- 
aster and defeat. This the sagacity of his opponent is 
not slow to discover, and quickly turns to his advantage. 
Let the bold infidel grapple with the uprising lion in his 



1S2 

path — ^the resurrection of the dead, as the only means 
and hope of future life, and we shall see how speedily 
his slight and fragile weapons are broken in pieces 
against the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense 
which God places before him: 

^''Hic labor — Hoc opus est.*^^ 
The writer does not hesitate to maintain, what he sub- 
mits is entirely accordant with human intelligence, that 
no man, however gifted in intellect and eminent in learn- 
ing, can successfully defend the Bible against the assaults 
of infidelity who admits, or attempts to maintain, the 
immortal soul theory and its inevitable outgrowth, the 
eternal torment of the wicked. These together form 
for the infidel an iron-clad battery, which turns aside 
every weapon of the Christian champion, however skill- 
fully forged and formidable in appearance. It is only 
necessary to state. the proposition that man is immortal 
and must necessarily live forever, to refute it. The the- 
ory is overturned when confronted by reason and our 
own experience, and observation, and especially by the 
direct testimony of Scripture : "In the day that thou 
eatest thereof (dying) thou shalt surely die," could have 
had no meaning addressed to an immortal being. So 
too, the other texts would have been equally contradic- 
tory: "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." 
"The wages of sin is death, and the gift of God is eter- 
nal life, (immortality), through Jesus Christ, our Lord." 

♦"This is the labor before us. 

"Thie ia work indeed."— [Tbakslatob.] 



153 

Such plain testimony overwhelms the Bible champion 

with confusion and defeat. 

By the same plain and easy proof, the advocate or , 
apologist of the endless misery of the wicked class, sup- 
posed to be the most numerous of our race, is driven 
from the field of argument by the clear and oft-repeated 
testimony of Scripture that "God is love ;" that "His 
mercy endureth forever;" that "he will not always chide, 
neither will he keep his anger fore\'er ;" that "He know- 
eth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust ;" that 
"the wicked shall be destroyed, shall utterly perish and be 
no more" — "be as if they had never been ;" that there 
shall be in the appointed future before us, '-'-no more pain 
nor death, and that every curse shall be removed from 
man, and the new earth shall be his future dwelling- 
place forever." 

This controversy, involving the constitution and the 
destiny of man, is of great antiquity. It is almost coeval 
with creation. It had its origin in the garden of Eden. 
It was the serpent, the father of lies, as our Lord styles 
him, who invented and first preached to Adam and Eve, 
the false doctrine now reiterated by Judge Black, and I 
am sorry to add by his orthodox clerical allies, and 
falsely ascribed by Mr. Ingersoll, and by them, to the 
Bible — "Ye shall not surely die," in rebellious contradic- 
tion of Jehovah. Our first parents had been warned 
and specially admonished beforehand, in case of their 
transgression of his word, "Ye shall surely die." Alas, 
what a burning reproach to the accepted and orthodox 



154 

creeds of Christendom, (so-called), that for a^es past and 

to this hour, following Plato and Socrates and rejecting 
Jehovah and Jesus, men continue to affirm with the ser- 
pent, and in company with pagan philosophers, "Thou, O 
man, art immortal! Thou shalt not surely die," which of 
course necessitates, as to the wicked, their continuous 
existence, and endurance of eternal misery and anguish. 

Involved in the meshes of Satanic sophistry and con- 
tradiction, how can the Christian champion in this con- 
troversy, on such premises, escape a final overthrow ? Is 
it wonderful that he cannot defend that which he con- 
fesses, as we have seen he does not understand, and sup- 
poses to be shrouded in impenetrable darkness ? 

But does his antagonist, the other disputant, stand on 
any firmer ground ? Hear his confessions at the grave 
of the little boy in the Washington cemetery, as chroni- 
cled in the public journals and not denied ! At a little 
boy's grave, as reported in the Washington Post of Jan- 
uary 9 th, Mr. Ingersoll said : 

My Friends:—! know how vain it is to gild a grief with 
words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here 
in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should 
be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The 
future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the 
^heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and 
blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of 
earth the patriarchs and babes sleep side by side. 

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? 
We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater bles- 
sing, Mfe or death. We cannot say that death is not "a good. 
We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or 
the door of another, or whether the night here is not some- 
where else a dawn, i^either can we ten which is the more 
fortunate— the child dying in its mother's arms, before its 



155 

lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the 
length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the last slow 
steps with staff and crutch. 

Every cradle asks us, ''Whence?" and«very coffin, "Whith- 
er?" The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can ans- 
wer these questions as intelligently and satisfactorily as the 
robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignor- 
ance of the one is just as consoling as the learned and 
unmeaning words of the other. No man standing where the 
horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to proph- 
ecy a future filled with pain and tears. It may be that death 
gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and 
strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that love 
would wither from the earth. May-be this common fate 
treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of 
selfishness and hate, and I would rather live and love where 
death is king than have eternal life where love is not. An- 
other life is nought unless we know, and love again the ones 
who love us here. 

They who stand with breaking hearts around this little 
grave, need have no fear. The larger and nobler faith in aU 
that is and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is 
only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants 
of life — the needs and duties of each hour — their grief will 
lessen day by day, until at last this ^rave wiU be to them a 
place of rest and peace — almost of joy. There is for them 
this consolation: The dead do not su^er. If they live again 
their Uves will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. 
We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate 
awaits us all. We, too, have our rehgion, and it is this: Help 
for the living—Hope for the dead. 

It need not surprise us that the infidel rejector of 

God's word should be confessedly in gross darkness, 

when called upon to answer "the whence and the 

whither" of human life — that he should "not know 

which is the greater blessing, life or death — whether the 

grave is the end of this life or the door to another." It 

is true, as he afiirms, that "the poor barbarian, weeping 

above his dead, can answer the questions as intelligently 

and satisfactorily as the robed priest of the most authen- 



156 

tic creed," but it is not the whole truth. If the "robed 
priest," while confessing with intelligent candor, that he 
has nothing to of^r in reply to the whence and the 
whither, will add that E-evelation — the Bible — answers 
these questions fully and triumphantly, the problem is 
solved, and all difficulty disappears. But if the priest, 
like Judge Black, admits that he is ignorant of, or does 
not understand the Bible, and that it is to him a sealed 
book, then indeed the riddle remains a riddle still. 

The Christian mstructed in his faith cannot afford, 
however otherwise agreeable, to accept the champion- 
ship against the iufidel of one who is only at best, an 
agnostic* — who openly confesses, as we see, that he can 
only grope his way by the light of "speculative opinions" 
— that "knowledge is out of our reach" — that "the future 
of the soul is a subject on which we have very dark 
views — that "no revelation has lifted the vail between 
time and eternity." In short, "whose ignorance of the 
whole scheme" unfits him to accept or to discard any 
conclusion whatever. But let rot the infidel rejoice in 
anticipated victory. "All such rejoicing is vain." God's 
revelation to man, far from leaving us in darkness as to 
the taunting "whence and whither" of the presumptuous 
atheist, sheds the full blaze of light and knowledge on 
the problem, both of the origin and of the destiny of 
our race. Its language is: "I am the light of the 
world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, 

* Agnostic— One who knows nothine. In religion, one who adm'ts every- 
thing and denies nothing m a creed — in opposition to the Infidel gnostics of 
the first century, who boasted of knowing everything. 



157 



but shall have the light of life. The light shineth in 
darkness and the darkness comprehend eth it not. This 
is the true light, which, coming into the world, enlightens 
every man." It is from this source of Life and Light 
that man is enabled to see the truth which dispels his 
native darkness — emancipates the servant of God from 
the bondage of ignorance and fear, and makes him "free 
indeed." 

.The Christian religion is easily defended on its own 
merits. It neither seeks nor accepts the proffered aid of 
human wisdom, speculative opinions, or science, falsely 
so-called. The Author and Finisher of our faith says 
expressly : "I receive not testimony from man." John 
V. Why? For the all-sufficient reason that the testi- 
mony which supports his mission is greater and comes, 
of necessity, from a higher source. Man, with all his 
boasted stores of knowledge, cannot testify as to the 
truth of a revelation from God. That high prerogative 
is reserved to God only. It is Jehovah, the Creator, who 
alone can reveal Himself or declare His will to man. His 
creature, man, of himself is not a competent witness in 
the premises, for is it not written by the highest author- 
ity that — "the wisdom of the world is foolishness with 
God — that the world, by its wisdom knows not God — 
that man at his best estate is altogether vanity." "Cease 
ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein 
is he to be accounted of?" 

It becomes, therefore, the function and the province of 
every human witness in such relations to God, not to 
presume to offer his testimony, but simply to deliver, oo 



158 

God's testimony, the message witli which he may be 
charged to his fellow-man. He must stand up before his 
fellow men as the mouth-piece of Jehovah, to utter His 
words and not his own. Hence, the prophets, God's 
messengers and witnesses to mankind, were inspired, and 
always say, "Thus saith the Lord;" and the Great 
Teacher and his witnesses say, "Thus it is written." 
That the delivery of these messages from God to man 
might be authenticated, the messena^ers were supplied 
with credentials, such as miracles, gifts of tongues, the 
power to heal the sick and raise the dead, etc. Illustra- 
tions of this fact are found in the Bible history of these 
witnesses for God, who, duly accredited and attested in 
their divine mission, found ready credence by all of good 
and honest hearts to whom they delivered their testi- 
mony. 

It may seem to some a harmless error, an innocent 
mistake, to believe in the immortal soul theory and eter- 
nal torment dogma of pagan mythology. Such a con- 
clusion is the result of a very superficial survey of the 
doctrine, when developed into its effects and its conse- 
quences. Brief reflection and a little knowledge of the 
nature and tendencies of the various religious systems 
extant, will suffice to show that it is to ttis fruitful 
source — as to a Pandora's box of evils — we are to refer 
the various forms of error in religious creeds and prac- 
tice, and the innumerable jarring sects that chequer the 
map of "Christendom" — evils everywhere condemned in 
Scripture, which reveals the "one Lord — one Faith — and 
one Baptism," and enjoins the unity of God's servants 



159 



in one body or chnrcli, while it denounces sects and 
divisions as "heresies," not to be tolerated. Nor will it 
escape the intelligent obseryer that these divisions and 
controversies arise not indeed out of an honest difference 
as to what the Bible teaches, but more frequently from 
contentions as to doctrine and dogma derived from these 
pernicious theories pursued outside of the Bible, and 
from a desire to be "wise above what is written." 

To substitute our own or other men's traditions and 
inventions for God's Word, even when professing to 
receive and accept it as our guide, is logically to deny 
and reject it. Immortal soulism and the eternal torment 
theory are, as we have said, altogether of Pagan origin 
and growth. Let us emphasize this statement by refer- 
ring the reader to the mythology of the earliest historic 
periods, and to the writings of Socrates and Plato, and 
the philosophers, both Greek and Roman, of a later day. 
Let him at the same time take the Bible in his hands and 
search it from Genesis to Revelation, and in no part of 
the long record, will be found the least trace of these 
obnoxious tenets. We may safely challenge the most 
confident believer of these dogmas to produce one single 
passage of Scripture which either expressly or by logical 
implication, teaches this heathen creed. Within the lids 
of the Holy Book no such words as "immortal soul," 
"never-dying soul," "the immortality of the soul," "the 
eternal torment of the wicked," etc., are to be found, 
but everywhere in it the contrary is affirmed, and that 
theory is disproved and disowned. 



160 

Since these strictures have been in preparation, Mr. In- 
gersoll has furnished an apt illustration of the facile 
credulity with which men presume to confound these 
anomalies and absurdities of a Pagan superstition with 
the simple faith and pure religion of the Bible, thus 
attempting to hold the latter responsible for the former. 

In a recent lecture delivered by him in Boston, he is 
thus reported in one of the city journals : 

From the Boston Globe. 
*'If Christianity is true, Mr. Emerson and Mr. Longfellow 
are in hell to-niglit," was Mr. IngersoU's greeting to his audi- 
ence at the Boston theatre. ".Calvin and Jonathan Edwards 
are in the other place, but give me hell in preference to such 
company." The audience cheered. 

"If Christianity is true ! " How unjust — how unblush- 
ingly, audaciously unfair ! When and where has "Chris- 
tianily" revealed a hell of eternal flames and a Heaven 
of perennial joys above the skies, for any of our fallen 
race, at death or at any time, especially, too, before the 
resurrection and the judgment day ; seeing that the pur- 
ified earth, and not Heaven, is to be the future abode of 
the redeemed ? Surely not in the Bible, for that des- 
cribes Hades, the Bible hell, as the grave, the place of 
darkness, silence, and profound, unconscious sleep— 
"where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary 
are at rest" — in which "there is no work nor device, nor 
love, nor hatred, nor knowledge, nor wisdom." iNTor can 
the Christianity of the Bible be held accountable for the 
childish, heathen superstition of the immortal soulists, 
that either Calvin, or Edwards, or Emerson, or Longfel- 



161 

low are in Heaven, seeing iLiat it is the Christianity of 
the Bible that plainly and expressly declares that "no 
man hath ascended to Heaven but the Son of Man, who 
came down from Heaven" — that Christ declared just 
before His ascension to His Father's right hand in 
Heaven, in terms equally emphatic to his Apostles, 
"Whither I go ye cannot come." Has Mr. Ingersoll a 
private Bible, a new revelation that he presumes to con- 
tradict the Christian's creed by attributing to Christian- 
ity an oracle whicli it never delivered? This unscrupu- 
lous defamer of Christianity should have framed his 
exordium to the Boston audience differently. He ought, 
in candor, to have said, "If sectarian orthodoxy be true," 
etc. In that case we should have keen obliged to accept 
his conclusion, and he would then have escaped the impu- 
tation of slandering Christianity, which, unhappily, now 
rests upon him. With Mr. Ingersoll, and with Judge 
Black as well, death, and the death-state, are insoluble 
mysteries. The "orthodox evangelical Christian," what- 
ever that may mean, and the avowed infidel, stand upon 
the same platform, and as the blind cannot safely lead 
the blind we invite the leader to avoid their fate by con 
sidering in the light of Reason and Revelation, our only 
guides to true knowledge — the question: — 

WHAT IS DEATH? 

The frequent occurrence of death, and our daily, even 
hourly, liability to fall before the shafts of the grim and 
relentless destroyer, naturally begets within us a desire to 
know what death is— what is the death state— whether man 
is mortal or iomiortal— whether "death ends all," as the 



IBS 

infidel declares. If not tlien what becomes of us after death 

and before the resurrection. 

It must be confessed that neither the preachers nor the 
philosophers of the day are agreed on these points, and hence 
we cannot trust ourselves blindly, as too many do, to their 
guidance. Is it not far safer and wiser, on so important and 
vital a question, to listen to the voice of reason and common 
sense; to that of experience and observation, and especially to 
the testimony of the Holy Scriptures ? Every sensible and 
unprejudiced mind will approve this course. 

1. Reason and common sense both teach us that when a 
man dies he is not alive in any sense, for death is the oppo- 
site of life; the death-state the very opposite of the life- 
state, and it is absurd, and contradictory to say that a man 
can be dead and alive at the same time. We know that a 
man dies when he can no longer breathe the air which is his 
breath of life. We know this by actual observation and ex- 
periment, as when the criminal is hung, the pressure of the 
rope stops the breathing process, and the man dies and soon 
becomes a mass of dust. JSTo one doubts or denies that in 
such a case tlie man dies — not his body only but all there is 
of him— as far as we know or can see, and we say without 
hesitation or fear of contradiction, such a man is dead. That 
is undoubtedly the testimony of reason and common sense. 

2. We are not without some knowledge from the experi- 
ence of others that death is an absolute and entire process, 
and that there is no life or consciousness after death until 
the resurrection — ^when, as we learn from the Bible, and from 
that source alone, the dead will live again. In cases of death 
by drowning, from epileptic and apoplectic fits, from a sudden 
blow on the head — where the breath has actually ceased, and 
men are dead and would remain so but for artificial remedies 
being applied to bring them to life — in some of these cases 
where men have lain for hours, and even days, in the death 
state, why is it that in not one solitary instance have 
these persons thus deprived of hfe ever had any experi- 
ence or consciousness of life in that state ? Can we deny 
that this evidence proves satisfactorily and beyond contro- 
versy that the common idea entertained by many and cur- 
rently inculcated from the pulpit, that death is a living state 
— that men can be alive and conscious, and yet dead and un- 
conscious at one and the same time, is wholly at war with 
experience and human testimony, as weU as opposed to rea- 
son and common sense ? 



163 

8. But when w© come to the Bible statements upon the 
question, we are absolutely amazed at the prevalence of the 
belief, even among conscientious religious people, that the 
popular and orthodox doctrine of the dead being still alive 
and conscious, and in g, knowing and wakeful state in Heaven 
or Hell, or Purgatory, as soon as the breath is out of the 
dead man's body", can be true. 

Let us consider some of the Bible statements on the sub- 
ject, which are so plain that he who nms may read, to show 
that such, far from being alive and conscious, in any other 
state or world after death, the testimony from both Testa- 
ments is all the other way : 

"The living know that they shall die ; but the dead know 
not anythmg. * * Also their love and their hatred and 
their envy is now perished forever, * * Whatsoever 
thy hand tindeth to do, do it with all thy might ; for there is 
no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave 
whither thou goest."— Eccles. ch. ix. 

In Job xiv it is written, "Man lieth down (in death) and 
riseth not ; till the Heavens be no more they shall not wake, 
nor be raised out of their sleep." David, in the Psalms, 
says: "In death there is no remembrance of thee. In the 
grave (the receptacle of all the dead) who shall give thee 
thanks? He calls the death-state "the land of forgetful- 
ness." He prays that God would bless him in the present 
life, adding, '-before I go hence and be no more." Speaking 
of Christ's resurrection he saith, in Psalms xvi, "Thou wilt 
not leave his soul in Hell," (the grave, the death-state), etc., 
showing that after his death on the cross it was in that state. 

In Dan. xii death is called a sleep. "Many of them (not 
their bodies), that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," 
(at the resurrection.) • 

These citations, with Psalms vi, xc, xxxvii, and many other 
passages, may suffice from the Old Testament. 

Opening the New Testament, we find the testimony even 
more conclusive, if possible. When our Lord spoke to his 
disciples of the death of Lazarus, he said, "Our friend Laz- 
arus sleepeth." See John xi. Are men conscious when 
sound asleep ? Can they know what is passing when they 
are asleep ? Would the testimony of a witness be received 
in any court as to transactions which occurred while he was 
asleep ? If Lazarus were alive and conscious, and in Heaven, 
(as our preachers now tell us all tlie righteous who die are), 
why did not Lazarus give and leave some record of what he 



164 

saw and heard during the four days of his conscious visit and 
sojourn in Heaven V Yet not one hint is given in the narra- 
tive of his having any such experience. 

In John V the Savior saith : "The hour is coming in the 
which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice and shall 
come forth," (not all that are in Heaven and Hell.) So, too, 
the Apostle Paul consoles the Thessalonians, I Thess. ch. iv, 
saying: "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, 
concerning them which are asleep, (dead), that ye sorrow 
not," etc., adding, "them also which sleep in Jesus, will God 
brin^ with him," at his coming and at the resurrection, and 
not till then. 

Again, in I Corin. xv, throughout, the same Apostle plainly 
lays down and proves the proposition that the resurrection is 
the only hope of the Christian for future life ; that "if there 
be no resurrection of the dead, the dead in Christ are per- 
ished," and we may "eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," 
a position utterly at war with a separate state of disemxbodied 
life and happiness, whether the dead are raised or not. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWEBED. 

Lest the charge be made that we purposely suppress 
other Bible texts that teach the opposite conclusion, I 
briefly pass in review the several passages that are sup- 
posed to militate against the above position. 

1. The promise made by our Lord to the penitent 
thief, that he should "be with Him in paradise." Luke 
xxiii, 39-44. In interpreting this colloquy it should be 
remembered that the answer was in reply to the petition 
of the robber. That petition was, "Lord, remember me 
when thou comest (not when thou goest) into thy King- 
dom." It had reference to Christ's coming again to the 



165 

earth and not to His going away from it. The penitent 
was a believer in Christ's return and desired to be remem- 
bered by Him when He came to establish His Kingdom 
over Israel, and to reign on earth according to the pre- 
dictions of the Master Himself, and in verification of Pil- 
ate's superscription, in three languages, over the head of 
the Son of God, "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King 
of the Jews." The whole context and all the facts and 
surroundin2^s of the scene forbid any other conclusion. 
Paradise was not in Heaven, but on earth. It was situa- 
ted in the delta of two well known rivers, the Tigris and 
the Euphrates, in Assyria. Were not Adam and Eve in 
Paradise? When Christ returns from the right hand of 
God to establish His Kingdom and reign on earth. Para- 
dise will be restored to His ransomed people, among 
whom, according to this promise to him, on that day, the 
pardoned robber — raised from the dead — will appear 
and be "remembered." Again, let us observe that on the 
third day after His own death, the Lord said to Mary, 
"Touch (rather seize) me not for I am not yet ascended 
to my Father." If on the thii^d day after he had not 
Himself ascended to His Father in Heaven, how can we 
maintain that the robber was with Him in Heaven or 
Paradise on that very day! In point of fact, as we learn 
in Acts, (chap, i,) He remained on earth after His death 
and resurrection "forty days" before His ascension. The 
mispunctuation of the Savior's language has contribu- 
ted to the blunder of "orthodoxy" in its interpretation of 
this passage. If the comma be placed where it belongs 
according to the best critics, after the word "to-day" and 



166 

not before it, the real sense ol the words appears: "Yerily 
I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me in Para- 
dise." 

2. Equally illogical and unsatisfactory are the at- 
tempts to bolster up the tottering theology of the pious 
dead going directly to Heaven, as soon as the vital air no 
longer animates the living being, based on the cases of 
Lazarus and the Rich man, and Moses and Elias appear- 
ing in the Transfiguration scene. Our limited space for- 
bids enlargement on . this supposed adverse testimony. 
It is only necessary to remark that, duly considered, 
it affords no more countenance to the orthodox faith 
(credulity) than the crucified robber's case. The first — 
Lazarus and the Rich man — is embodied in a parable, 
which is a fictitious narrative, designed, like JEsop's Fa- 
bles, always and only, not to prove, but to illustrate, some 
moral truth or lesson. The narrative of facts and inci_ 
dents introduced constitutes only the dress of the story 
and is not to be taken literally. Hence it is absurd to 
attempt to prove a fact or a doctrine by relatiug a fable. 
We look for the point or object of the illustration em- 
ployed, and in this case, as the context shows, that point 
was not the state of the dead, but the different destiny 
in the future life of the righteous poor man, (Lazarus), 
and the rich sensualist, (Dives). The intelligent reader 
sees, too, that the scene represents the actors as being 
substantial, physical beings, having eyes and tongues and 
bodies. They were not the serial ghosts, disembodied 
souls or floating spirits of dead men, according to the 
orthodox school, and hence, if we accept the literal con- 



167 

struction, sucli testimony can prove nothing in support 
of the Pagan orthodoxy. 

As to the appearance of Moses and Ellas in the trans- 
figuration scene, we know that Elijah did not die, but 
was translated and so his presence would prove nothing 
as to the death-state, upon which he had never entered, 
and as it is written of Moses that "the Lord buried him," 
his case becomes exceptional, and is not available for 
proof. Besides he may have been raised from the dead 
for this special occasion. Matthew's narrative of the 
event, ch. xvii, 9, speaks of it as a "vision," something 
unreal, in the nature of a trance or dream, and hence, 
not necessarily a physical occurrence, but sufficiently 
distinct and impressive to represent to the minds of the 
apostles a picture of his kingdom; and of his own appear- 
ance and that of Moses and Elias when he should come 
in his glory. 

Thus we see on what a slender foundation — on what 
scant ground — these cherished dogmas of heathen myth- 
ology stand at last. Yet robed in the deceptive livery of 
orthodoxy they beguile honest but ignorant people, and 
pass unchallenged with Mr. IngersoU and his allies, 
under the usurped name of Christianity. 

Confessedly in darkness as to the constitution of man 
in life, and his state in death, neither Mr. IngersoU nor 
Judge Black can solve the great problem of humanity. 
Neither of them seeks light from the only source whence 
it is to be derived. The first rejects the Bible light alto- 
gether, and the other, in adopting the Platonic theory as 
a gui^e, obscures his vision, and cannot discern the true 



168 

light. Yet nothing is more simple and easy of appre- 
hension than the Mosaic narrative of the creation, consti- 
tution and destiny of man. Here we have the question 
of the "whence" and the "whither," fully answered. As 
to whence he comes, the answer is, "from the dust of the 
earth," and as to the lohither he goes, we read, "dust 
thou art and unto dust thou shalt return." It reveals to 
us what otherwise we should never have discovered, that 
"God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a 
living soul." His continued life was made to depend on 
his observance of the Creator's law. This simple sen- 
tence tells the whole story. From these premises we 
argue logically the following conclusions : 

I. "That man, being in his creation organized dust, 
was, before the in-breathing of the breath of life, mere 
inert matter — had no more life than the dust of which 
he was formed. But when this dust organism was set 
in motion, animated by the breath of life from God, he 
became "a living soul," not however an immortal soul, 
nor possessed of or inhabited by an immortal soul neither 
"in the head nor the heart," nor the lungs, nor the "grey 
matter of the brain," according to the fanciful theory of 
the physiologists and philosophers, but simply a living 
soul, or being, as we see him now, liable to death. 

n. As he had access to all the fruits of the garden, 
including the tree of life, and excepting only that of the 
knowledge of good and evil, which was forbidden, he con- 
tinued to live until his transgression, which entailed upon 



169 

him the prescribed penalty, death, and we see it literally 
fulfilled to this day. 

III. That, from that moment becoming mortal, he 
paid himself, and his posterity after him, pays to this 
hour that penalty, Death, which ends the Adamic life 
— the only life he had — and remands him again to the 
dust of the ground. 

I \^. That Adam lived and his descendants yet live 
under this death sentence, which in their case is coetane- 
ous with their birth, the execution of the sentence being, 
however, suspended until he reaches the goal of life; then 
"the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit (or 
breath of life) returns unto God who gave it.") Eccles. 
xii, 1.) Thus man realizes and proves in his own person that 
the "wages of sin is death" — not eternal life in 
misery. 

Now who can discover in this plain narrative any hint, 
even the faintest intimation, of immortality, or even of 
any future life to man? — any threat of future pain or 
pleasure in the death state? 

To that future life our right and title is derived from 
another source — the second Adam; as it is written, "The 
first man, Adam, was made a living soul. The last Adam 
was made a quickening (life-giving) spirit. Howbeit, 
that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is 
natural (animal), and afterward that which is spiritual. 
The first man is of the earth, earthy — the second man is 
the Lord from Heaven. As is the earthy such are they 
also that are earthy and as is the Heavenly such shall 



170 

they also be that are Heavenly. And as we have borne 

the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of 
the Heavenly." 

There is indeed not only no immortality out of Christ, 
but absolutely no future life for any of our race, except 
according to His sovereign will and pleasure. It is He 
who "holds the keys of death and hell (the grave). He 
opens and no man shuts. He shuts and no man opens." 
He says of Himself, "I am the resurrection and the 
life." "ISTo man cometh unto the Father but by me." It 
is His voice that is to wake the sleeping dead. Hear 
His words : "The hour is coming in which all that are in 
their graves (not in Heaven, or Hell, or Purgatory), shall 
hear His voice and shall come forth. They that have 
done good unto the resurrection of life and they that 
have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation," (con- 
demnation.) How justly and wisely He will employ 
this high prerogative trust which the Father hath confi- 
ded to Him as the King, Judge and Ruler of all nations 
at His coming in His Kingdom, we may learn from 
what is written for our admonition unto whom the con- 
summation of the ages is come. "He will render to every 
man according to his works. To those who by patient 
continuance in well doing, seek for glory, honor and im- 
mortality, eternal life; but unto those who, are conten- 
tious and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, 
indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon 
every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and 
also of the Gentilej but glory, honor and peace to every 



IV] 

} 
man that worketli good, to the Jew first, and al^o to the 

Gentile, for there is no respect of persons with God." 

Truly, "Life and immortality are brought to life through 
the Gospel,''^ and not by Thales, Socrates and Plato, who 
flourished many hundred years before Christ. In truth 
it was not until the Paganization of Christianity, in the 
days of Constantine, the Roman Emperor, and subse- 
quently, that the Christian faith has become thoroughly 
corrupted by these interpolations of the Heathen Mythol- 
ogy, viz., immortal souls in men, the doctrine of purga- 
tory, the invocation of dead saints, the worship of the 
Virgin Mary, prayers to, and for the dead, future proba- 
tion, the eternal torment of the wicked, etc., just as we 
see them at this day incorporated into the creeds and 
formulas of the Catholic and Protestant sects around us; 
all claiming to pass, unchallenged, as we have seen, un- 
der the name of Christianity/. Fortunately such bold in- 
novations, — such daring usurpations, and pernicious cor- 
ruptions of the pure and simple Christian faith, have not 
wholly escaped profane history, whose pen has faithfully 
recorded them for our instruction and admonition. We 
have already recited in the body of this work some rele- 
vant testimony from the historians. Gibbon and Macau- 
lay. We select from abundant similar material, brief 
extracts from more recent sources, in support of the state- 
ment we have made as to the Paganization of the Chris- 
tian religion in modern times, by its professed friends, 
those who claim to be of the household of faith. 

The late Dr. John W. Draper, of the University of 
Kew Yorkj who cannot be claimed as a witness with a 



172 

bias toward the Christian faith, writes candidly in his 
"Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 39, as fol- 
lows: "Christianity spread rapidly until Constantine, 
from motives of policy, adopted the new religion, after 
which, place, profit and power were ever in view of 
whomever joined the conquering sect. Crowds of 
worldly persons, who cared nothing about its religious 
ideas, became its warmest supporters. Pagans at heart, 
their influence was soon manifested in the Faganization 
of Christianity that forthwith ensued. The Emperor, no 
better than they, did nothing to check their proceedings, 
and did not personally conform to the rites of the Church, 
until the close of his evil life." Again : "It was clearly 
seen by many pious men, that religion was not accountable 
for the false position in which she was found, but that 
the misfortune was directly traceable, to the alliance she 
had contracted with Roman Paganism." Thus, after all. 
Dr. Draper, who held that Christianity was still merged 
in Paganism, should, in candor, have styled his book 
"The Conflict between Science and Paganism, in its 
Modem Development," and not between "Science and 
(the true) Religion." 

Gibbon bears similar testimony. He says: "The Gnos- 
tics, (an early Christian sect), were distinguished as the 
most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of 
the Christian name, and that general appellation, which 
expresses a superiority of knowledge, was either assumed 
by their own pride, or ironically bestowed by the envy 
of their adversaries. * * * -pj^^ Gnostics 

blended with the faith of Christ, many sublime but 



1*73 

obscure tenets, which they derived from Oriental Philos- 
ophy, and even from the religion of Zoroaster, concerning 
the eternity of matter, the existence of two principles, 
and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible world. As 
soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they deliv- 
ered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagina- 
tion, and, as the paths of error are various and infinite, 
the Gnostics were imperceptibly divided into more than 
fifty particular sects," * * * "The writings 
of Cicero, represent in most lively colors, the ignorance, 
the errors and the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers, 
in regard to the immortality of the soul. * * * 
It must be confessed, that in the sublime inquiry, their 
reason had been often guided by their imagination, and 
that their imagination had been prompted by their 
vanity. When they viewed, with complacency, the 
extent of their own mental powers — when they exer- 
cised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of 
judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the 
most important labors, and when they reflected on the 
desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, 
far beyond the bounds of death, and of the grave, they 
were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts 
of the field, or to suppose that a being for whose dignity 
they entertained the most sincere admiration, could be 
limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of dura- 
tion. * * * The general system of their 
Mythology, was unsupported by any solid proofs, and the 
wisest among the Pagans had already disclaimed its 
usurped authority. The description of the infernal 



174 



regions had been abandoned to tbe fancy of painters, 
and of poets, who peopled them with so many phantoms 
and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and punish- 
ments with so little equity, that a solemn truth — the hope 
of a future life, the most congenial to the human heart — 
was oppressed and disgraced by. the absurd mixture of 
the wildest fictions. The doctrine of a future life was 
scarcely considered among the devout polytheists of 
Greece and Kome, as a fundamental article of faith. In 
the age of Cicero, and the first Caesars, at the Bar, and in 
the senate of Rome, the ablest orators were not appre- 
hensive of giving offence to their hearers, by exposing 
that doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which 
was rejected with contempt bv every man of a liberal 
education and understanding."* Such was the natural 
consequence of their ignorance, or rejection of the 
heaven-born doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead, and 
their crude conjectures of future life, by the crooked con- 
ceit of the immortality of the soul, disembodied spirits, 
and eternal misery to the damned, conjectures so puerile 
and revolting, to the manly intellect of the better class 
among them, as to be discarded with pity or scorn. 

I resist the temptation in support of our position of the 
entire mortality of man, to enter the wide field of popu- 
lar hymnology — and glean thence the overwhelming 
proofs of the credulity and contradiction which charac- 
terize modern orthodox Churchism, as to man's nature 

*NoTB.— The Reader is referred to page 103, ante, for a striking quotation 
there cited from Gibbon, to tjie same purport. 



175 



and destiny. The field is too wide for full exploration. 
Two examples from favorite hymns must suffice. One 
reads thus : 

First verse: — 

"A charge to keep I have ; 

A God to glorify ; 
A never- dying soul to save, 
And fit it for the sky." 
« « * * 

Last verse: 

"I can but perish if I go ; 

I am resolved to try, 
Por if I stay away, I know 

I must forever die. 

What but rank Paganism, or blind credulity, could 
beguile sensible people into the belief that "a never 
dying soul must forever die!" Yet such is our religious 
orthodoxy. Another popular hymn reads : 

"With thee we reign. 

With thee we rise, 
And kingdom gain 

Beyond the skies. ''^ 

In Dlain denial of this Sky-kingdomania we oppose the 
clear testimony of the divine oracles : * * *'Thou 
hast made us unto our God, Kings and Priests, and we 
shall reign on the earth.''^ Rev. v, 10. 



176 



CHRISTIANITY PAGANIZED, 

This "Paganization of Christianity" is not contined 
to the creeds, confessions and theological symbols of the 
modern Gentile churches — claiming, too, to be "orthodox 
and evangelical" — but it infests likewise the schools and 
colleges, the learning, the poetry and literature of the 
age in which we live, and even glories in its shame, in 
adopting or imitating the absurd and puerile blunders of 
Paganism, exalting them by contrast over the truth and 
wisdom of the Divine religion. We do not stop to in- 
stance the obituary and funereal literature of the day, 
which, without hesitation, dispensing with the Bible 
teaching of the resurrection and a future judgment day, 
sends the dead to Heaven or Hell direct, and thus makes 
void the Word of God that they may keep their own tra- 
ditions received from their Pagan saints, Plato, Epicu- 
rus, Zoroaster, Confucius, etc., for such is familiar knowl- 
edge to all our readers. How often do we hear or read, 
on such occasions, of the dead having "gone to that 
bourne whence no traveler returns.'''^ — that they have 
fallen into "^Ae sleep which knows no waking^'' — that 
with them, as the learned John Quincy Adams declared, 
when stricken down by death in the nation's Capitol, 
^''And so this is the last of earth'"' — sentiments and 
language entirely inconsistent with, and contradictory to, 
the Bible's oft-repeated declarations that "the dead shall 



• 177 

arise — that there shall 1 e a resurrection of the dead, 
both of the just and of the unjust." 

To the same purport, and marked by the same practical 
disregard and denial of the truth of God's word, certain 
of our own poets have contributed the resources of their 
genius and learning, following in the wake of Socrates 
and Plato — of the "Stoics and Epicureans," whom St. 
Paul encountered at Athens, and refuted by preaching 
"Jesus and the resurrection," to the utter confusion of 
their immortal soul theory. (Acts xvii.) 

It is sad, though true, that our modern poets in civil- 
ized Europe and America, are mere copyists and imita- 
tors of Homer, Sophocles, etc., in Greece, and of Yirgil 
and Ovid of Rome. Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Young, 
Addison, Byron and Moore, with Bryant, Poe, Whittier, 
Longfellow and Holmes, heedless of the voice of inspi- 
ration, are all content to adopt the creed of Platonism 
without inquiry or demur, and quietly to take their allot- 
ted places in the vast pantheon of the dark and blind 
superstition of Paganism. A few familiar extracts from 
our modern Platonists in poetry will serve to illustrate 
this position. 

In Hamlet's soliloquy, Shakespeare thus records his 

creed : 

To die ; to sleep ; 
To sleep ; perchance to dream ! Aye, there's the rub. 
Per in that sleep of death, what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause. * * * 

Who would fardels bear. 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
But that the dread of something after death — 



1*78 



The undiscovered country from whose bourn 

'No traveler returns — puzzles the will, 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 

Than fly to others that we know not of. 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." 

Here there is no light above the tomb — ^no hope of 
escape from the grave, the common prison-house of 
humanity ; no promise of return from the "undiscovered 
country" whose bourne none have explored, but only the 
conscious "dread of something after death, which makes 
cowards of us all." What advantage, then, had the 
Noble Bane, in a Christian land, over the learned Pagan 
who worshipped at the shrine of the "unknown God" 
in Athens? Thus we see that even Shakespeare in the 
wide sweep of his almost universal knowledge, had 
succumbed to the childish, though unquestioned and 
"orthodox," theology of his times. If, like St. Paul, he 
had been enlightened by Divine Kevelation, the gifted 
genius of Avon would like Paul, also "have put away 
childish things." 

In Addison's Cato, the Roman suicide's plea is thus 

urged : 

* * * * * 

"Eternity, thou pleasing:, dreadful thought I 

I'hrough what variety or untried being, 

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass. 

The wide unbounded prospect lies before me ; 

But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. 

* * Here will I hold. * * * 
Thus am I doubly armed ; my death and hfe, 
My bane and antidote, are both before me. 
This,* in a moment, brings me to an end ; 
But thist informs me I sball never die. 

:^Tlie Dagger. tPlato's Treatise. 



119 



The soul, secured in her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
The Stars shall fade away, the Sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and jSTature sink in years. 
But thou Shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds." 

Very practical, very orthodox and very sublime — non- 
sense — unworthy of what has been called the Augustan 
age of English letters — the palmy day of the Reformed 
Religion! 

Young, in his *'Night Tbougbts," thus describes man; 
* * * * * 

Distinguished link in being's endless chain ! 
Midway from nothing to the Deity ! 
A beam etherial, sullied and absorpt, 
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine, 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute ; 
An heir of glory, a frail child of dust, 
Helpless, immortal ! Insect infinite ! 
A worm ! A God ! I tremble at myself. 
And in myself am lost. At home a stranger 
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, 
And wondering at her own. How reason reels ! 
Oh what a miracle to man is man ! 
Triumphantly distressed, what joy, what dread ! 
Alternately transported and alarmed. 
What can pursue my life, or what destroy V 
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave — 
Legions of angels can't confine me there." 

He fitly closes this tortured paradox, long drawn out, 
with the masterful contradiction: 

"Death gives us more than was in Eden lost— 
The King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace /" 

Christianity, in its modern perversion, is the ancient 
Paganism in a new dress, baptized with a new nomen- 



180 

clatnre. Its founders and professors have substituted 
God for Jupiter, Heaven for Elysium, Hell for Tartarus, 
Satan for Pluto, and immortal-soulism for the resurrec- 
tion, and, like the ancient idolators, they erect temples 
and build statues, monuments and memorial churches 
and windows, to their Gentile saints, heroes and poets, 
who?e crimes in some instances, rather than their vir- 
tues, have given them a bad eminence among their fel- 
lows. Pope, one of their great poets, has recognized 
this modern Paganistic equality, and communism of the 
Godhead, in his "Universal Prayer," which is applauded 
by common consent as both orthodox and beautiful: 

"Father of all, in every age, 
In every clime adored, 
By saint, by savage and by sage, 
Jehovah^ Jove, or Lord.''^ 

And, as if deliberately ignoring, if not discarding, 
God's revelation of Himself, the same Agnostic poet 
writes, in his essay on Man. 

"Know then thyself; presume not God to scan, 
The proper study of'iinanMnd is man.'''' 

God's word offers little inducemient to man to study 
himself. Self-knowledge, chastened and guided by 
Divine inspiration, begets within us the humility, and 
self-abasement, which is the first step toward true wis-- 
dom and manliness; otherwise it is delusive, and becomes 
the source, and spring of self-esteem, pride and vanity 
The Divine Oracles admonish us, that, "Man at his best 
estate is altogether vanity," and that it is "not in man that 



181 

walketh, to direct his steps." Such admonitions offer us 
little inducement to copy from a model so defective. 

"Know then thyseK"— a heathen precept — is naturally 
enough followed by, "Presume not God to scan" — a les- 
son of modern agnosticism, in broad contrast, with the 
wisdom which comes down from above, that commands : 
^'-Acquaint thyself with God^'' "Thus saith the Lord, 
"Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let 
the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich 
man glory in his riclies, but let him that glorieth, glory 
in this, that he understandeth and Jcnoweth me, that I am 
the Lord, which exercise loving kindness, judgment, 
and righteousness in the earth, for in these things, I 
delight, saith the Lord." Again ; "This is life eternal, 
To know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
whom thou hast sent." 

Pope's agnosticism, is only paralleled by Plato's pan- 
theism. In the multitude of Heathen Divinities, una- 
ble to decide, as to the true one, both bow down, with 
equal reverence, before the Athenian altar dedicated "^o 
the TJnknovm God T'' 

Is not the precept equally absurd which declares : "TAe 
proper study of mankind is m.anV'' Without a true 
knowledge of man's origin, constitution, and destiny, 
which our theologians and philosophers, confess they do 
not possess, how can they profitably "study man?" As 
man is himself a creature — the off-spring of God — we 
can only intelligently comprehend him, by tracing his 
parentage ; m knowing the Creator, we best become 



182 

acquainted with the creature. We know the stream by 
ascending to its fountain. Even the profane Latin poet, 
wrote, ''Felix qui pctuit cognoscere causas rerum.''^^ 
Hence the English poet should have written; "The 
proper study of mankind is God.'''* 

Here is another gem from the same tawdry crown of 
a spurious religion — from '^Christianity as it is^"* in 
modern days. It is a scrap of fugitive poetical ortho- 
doxy from the fervid but obfuscated fancy of Lord Lyt- 
ton, author of "Lucile," etc. It is boldly entitled — 
^^ There is no Death 'P 

"There is no death I The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore ; 
And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown 
They shine forevermore. 



There is no death ! An angel form 
Walks o'er the earth, with silent tread; 
He bears our best loved things away, 
And then we call them "deadi" 



And when he sees a smile too bright, 
Or lieart too pure for taint or vice, 
He bears them to that world of Ught, 
To dwell in Paradise. 

And ever near us, though unseen, 
The dear, immortal spirits tread ; 
For tliem the boundless universe 
Is life — they are not dead. 

In view of the learned ignorance of these poetical 
interpreters of the new orthodoxy, we are bound to rec- 

* Bappy is he who ie able to trace the causes of thine;8. 



183 

ognize the logical consistency of their creed, in expung- 
ing the resurrection of the dead altogether, for if "there 
is no death," there can be no resurrection from the dead, 
and so that cardinal tenet of the Christian faith — which, 
as we have seen, is our only ground of hope for future 
life — is discarded and abandoned. How can such infidel 
reasoners — "turning away their ears from the truth unto 
fables," (immortal souls, etc.,) — ^hope to escape St. Paul's 
condemnation, in his great argument in I Corinth, xv, 
to-wit: "If there be no resurrection of the dead, they 
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in 
this life only, we have hope in Christ we are of all men 
most miserable. What advantageth it me if the dead 
rise not ? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
Our own Longfellow, in his JPsalm of Life is equally 
deficient in the Bible Doctrine. It is thus he writes of 
man's constitution and destiny, even with God's word 
open to his inspection : 

"Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the grave is not its goal. 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the souV^ 

In flat contradiction of the Word of Urod ! For it 
was to man — to Adam — the "living soul," according to 
Moses and Saint Paul, that God spoke the words in Gen. 
ii, 1, lb. iii, 19. Yet the poet spoiled by patristic lore 
— his gifted genius darkened by the thick veil of Pagan 
blindness and orthodox philosophy — is led to give utter- 
ance to the exact opposite of what the Divine Record 
declares. Thus, we see the natural fruit of adopting the 



iS4 



Pagan creed ; yet men still presume to ask, "Is there 
any harm in believing in the truth-opposing dogma of an 
immortal soul in man ?" 

It is sad to see that modern literature as well as mod- 
ern Christianity, the orthodox religion of the present 
day, is a compound of Platonism, Pantheism, and Pagan- 
ism. It is the legitimate product of that wide-spread 
apostacy from the primitive faith declared by Christ and 
His apostles, and which they predicted. He said to the 
scoffing Jews, "How can you believe who seek honor one 
of another, and seek not that honor which comes from 
God only ? I am come in my own name, and ye receive 
me not. If another shall come in his name, him ye will 
receive." How strikingly are these sayings fulfilled, and 
illustrated in our modern ecclesiasticism ! How ardent 
and reckless the pursuit, in this age, of the honors, the 
applause and the wealth which are sought of worldly 
ambition ! The honor which men seek from their fel- 
lows ! How few those who seek and strive for that true 
honor which cometh from God only ! The vast multi- 
tude of religionists, in this generation, are careless or 
faithless, as to receiving Christ in His own name, but 
readily accept those teachers who come in their name. 
The whole calendar of Romish saints and the great 
army of Protestant sects, rise up before us as so many 
witnesses of the truth of this prophecy. Look at the 
Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Wesleyans, the Sweden- 
borgians, etc., which complacently adopt the names of 
those whom they confess to he their "founders," while 



385 

the wijl and tlie word, even the name of Christ, are for- 
gotten or ignored ! 

We cannot better close this imperfect review, of the 
ignorance and folly of the current creed of our 
future state, and show how daringly defiant, of the 
plain teaching of God's Word, is the orthodox belief 
than to insert, as the latest phase of the current theology 
on the state of man, after death, the following lines, pub- 
lished extensively, in the press of our country, without 
dissent or demur. Doubtless no one will deny that Soc- 
rates, Plato, SJiakespeare, Carlyle and Emerson are dead. 
One would be laughed to scorn, who presumed to affirm 
the contrary, yet our religious guides, will assert continu- 
ally, man can be dead, and yet'alive, at one and the same 
time. All recognize life and death, to be exact oppo- 
sites — that they cannot co-exist — that if a man is dead, 
he cannot be alive: Yet while admitting all this, men 
accept* with approval, the very opposite — the flat contra- 
diction of their own admissions — as in the following 
poetical apotheosis of one of their demi-gods, entitled : 

EMERSON. 

The Transcendentalist ; — he now transcends 
The cloud of death to meet immortal friends. 
The wise man of the West, the saintly sage — 
The mystic bard, the Plato of the age. 
Hath changed his habitation. Lo ! his ghost 
Takes note authentic of the Unknown Coast. 
He holds divine communion with the men 
Who consecrate to wisdom tongue and pen. 
Perchance his "clear, fijae talk" may reconcile 
Momentous discords with redeemed Carlyle ; 
Mayhap, in Soul's hospitable domain, 



186 

He hails the shade of voluble Montaigne; 

Or treads with reverential feet the road 
[A welcome guest] to Shakespeare's own abode 
'Tis apt he strays beneath celestial trees, 
In questions deep with genial Socrates. 

Surely this is poetical transcendentalism transcended- — 
"a vaulting (orthodox) ambition which o'erleaps itself and 
falls on t'other side." To adopt a fairer fullness of state- 
ment than Mr. Ingersoll could afford to give at Boston, 
we may say, "If the poet be right, the poor ghastly "ghost" 
of Emerson, floating in chilly ether, its body mouldering 
in the grave and denied resurrection, has not even the 
temporary relief granted to the demons to enter the 
swine and perish in the sea, rather than be disembodied 
— a state of being most to be dreaded, according to the 
devils themselves; and yet to this unhappy condition the 
poet consigns his friends Socrates, Emerson & Co., for- 
ever. 

In clear contradiction, of these fancy sketches of the 
immortality of man, and the final catastroj)he of creation, 
we submit the testimony of God's Word. "As for maa^ 
his days are as grass ; as the flower of the field, so he flour- 
isheth, for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone." 
"Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return ye 
children of men" (to the dust), for, "Dust thou art and 
unto dust shalt thou return." And as to the grand "wreck 
of matter,'' etc., which is to rend and ruin man's dwelling 
place, it is only necessary to remind the intelligent 
reader, that that same faithful Word assures us that 



187 

"the earth abideth forever^ and shall nemr be moved out 

of its place." 

Such are, in practical reality, the deplorable conse- 
quences of Paganizing the religion of the Bible ? 

Is it wonderful that, under the influence of such patent 
absurdities, Christianity ias it is, in its present dress, of 
dogmatic theology, robed in the tattered garments of 
the old Pagan superstition, should be at first suspected,* 
closely scrutinized, and at length boldly discarded, and 
that honest, and intelligent men, detecting the counter- 
feit, should abandon the ranks of a spurious orthodoxy, 
and easily lapse into absolute indifferentisra, or fall into 
the open gulf of infidelity? Anciently, and in its origi- 
nal application, the term orthodox^ meant sound in doc- 
trine, tested by the Divine standard, but in its present 
use, it denotes, the prevalent popular creed, in any par- 
ticular locality. Thus, Popery is orthodox in Rome, 
Episcopacy in England, Unitarianism in Boston, Pres- 
byterianism in Princeton, Mormonism in Utah. The 
phrase has thus lost its original meaning. In its proper 
and better use, history testifies, it was applied in the 
early Church to the pure truth of the Bible. Gibbon 
already quoted,* relates that "the ancient and popular 
doctrine, of the Millenium, the second coming of Christ, 
the resurrection of the dead, e.tc, though it might not 
have been universally received, appears to have been 
the reigning sentiment of the ortJiodox believers^ and 
seemed so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions 
of mankind, that it must have contributed in a very con- 

* Ante p. 103. ^ 



188 

siderablt degree, to the progress of the Christian faith." 
Thus what was orthodox, with the early Christians, even 
according to profane history, is now heretical — a result 
attributable to no other cause than the modern corrup- 
tion and Paganization of the pure faith of the gospel of 
Christ. 

It is a deplorable reflection, with all well informed, and 
candid men, that these meretricious garments, of a long ex- 
ploded Mythology, should have been picked up, and appro- 
priated by the Theologians, and Philosophers of succeed- 
ing generations, and are at this day, ostentatiously para- 
ded and emblazoned, in the gaze of the credulous multi- 
tude, as the resplendent robes of Christ's righteousness 
and the glistening regalia of "the King in His beauty." 

Perhaps no modern author has exposed, more clearly 
and skilfully, the fallacies of the current orthodox faith, 
and developed in a more benignant spirit, the Bible doc-. 
trine of life and immortality, involving the constitution 
and destiny of our race, than the late Dr. Whately, Arch- 
bishop of Dublin, author of the celebrated treatise 
on Logic and other well known works. Although ignorant, 
or faithless of the kindred Bible doctrine of the ".Gospel 
of the kingdom of God," and of Christ's literal Reign 
on earth, over all nations, and of the first and second 
resurrections of the dead, etc., he has shed a flood of 
Bible light, on the grand topic, of life and immortality 
in Christ, in his cautious and tentative treatment of 
the subject; and as it cannot be urged, that one so justly 
renowned for skill and power as a logician, is not to be 



189 



trusted as a reasoner, his arguments are tlie more weighty- 
arid valuable, and have never been answered. In his 
"X//6 and Death^^ and in '-'Scripture Mevelations of 
a Future lAfe^^ Bishop Whately has examined and 
expounded the subject, with a perspicuity, and simplicity 
which leaves nothing to be desired. It is true, that he 
was preceded by one of his countrymen, the late Dr. 
John lliomas of London, who, as early as the year 1833, 
in his paper called, "TAe Apostolic Advocate^'' and sub- 
sequently, "27ie Investigator^^ first broached in the 
United States, whither he had migrated from England, 
the enquiry as to the immortality of the soul and the 
endless misery theory ; and being, like ApoUos, an elo- 
quent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, in public lec- 
tures and discussions, he boldly demanded the Bible 
proof, of the obnoxious dogmas. Subsequently he deliv- 
ered lectures in Britain, and in the United States, on the 
subject, which were afterwards embodied in his learned 
and exhaustive work called, '^Elpis IsraeV — an exposi- 
tion which passed through many editions in this country 
and in Great Britain, and was far in advance of the learn- 
ing of that day and generation. 

Under the influence of these revolutionizing ideas it 
is not surprising that thoughtful men, discerning the 
truth, have since risen up to complain of the modern 
wide departure from the right way — from the "old 
paths" of original faith, and that honest and conscien- 
tious enquirers in religion should at length have called a 
halt, and earnestly insisted on a return to first principles 



190 

in order to discover and disinter the buried treasure of 
the long lost truth. These have come forth, though 
reluctantly, in late years, as so many witnesses to the 
predicted apostacy from the original faith, which was to 
give character to the ecclesiasticism of the latter days. 
In his address to the Elders of Ephesus, St. Paul, (Acts 
xx), gives this note of warning, saying: "Take heed, 
therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which 
the Holy Ghost has made you over-seers, to feed the 
Church of God which ITe hath purchased with His own 
blood. * * * * For I know this, that after my 
departing, shall grievious wolves enter among you, not 
sparing the flock. Also, of your own selves shall men 
arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disci- 
ples after them. Therefore watch and remember, that 
by the space of three years I cease not io warn every one, 
night and day, with tears ; and now, brethren, I com- 
mend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which 
is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance 
among all them which are sanctified." 

In further proof and illustration. Dr. Whately truly 
says: "It is certain that the words. Life, Eternal Life, 
Immortality, etc., are always applied in the Scriptures 
to the condition of those, and of those only, who shall at 
the last day be approved as good and faithful servants, 
who are to enter into the joys of their Lord. Life, as 
applied to their condition, is usually understood to mean 
happy life, and that theirs will be a happy life we are 
indeed plainly taught; but I do not think we are any- 



191 



where taught that the word Life does of itself necessar- 
ily imply happiness. If so, indeed, it would be a mere 
tautology to speak of a happy life, and a cont: adiction 
to speak of a miserable life, which we know is not the 
case according to the usage of any language. * * 

"To the condition of the condemned the words Life 
or Immortality ne\'er are applied in Scripture. If, there- 
fore, we suppose tlie hearers of Jesus and His apostles 
to have understood, as nearly as possible, in the ordinary 
sense, the words employed, they must naturally have 
conceived them to mean, if they taught nothing to the 
contrary, that tJie condemned were really and literally to 
be destroyed, and cease to exist ; not that they were to 
exist forever in a state of wretchedness, for they are 
never spoken of as being kept alive, but as forfeiting 
life, as, for instance, 'Ye will not come to me that ye may 
liave life,' — 'He that hath the Son hath life, and he that 
Imth not the Son of God hath not life,' and again, *per- 
dition,' 'death,' 'destruction,' are employed in numerous 
passages to express their doom." 

The great John Locke in his ^'Heasonahleness of 
Christianity,^'' says— "By death sonie men understand 
endless torments in Hell-fire, but it seenas a strange way 
of understanding a law, which requires the plainest and 
directest words, that by death, should be meant eternal 
life in misery. Can any one be supposed to intend by a 
law which says "for felony thou shalt surely die" — not 
that he should lose his life, but be kept alive, in exquisite, 



192 

and perpetual torments? And would any one feel him- 
self fairly dealt with that was so used?" 

THE GOSPEI^THE MEAN'S OF BEQAININO 
OUB LOST LIFE. 

In opposition to all tLis Pagan ignorance, superstition 
and folly, alfke in its ancient and modern development 
which we see to be denounced and discarded by the word 
of God, the Christian if "a Scribe instructed in the 
kingdom of God," maintains and defends the Bible, as 
making known the only remedy for man's recovery from 
the fall, through the second Adam, "in whom are hid 
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," who is the 
Resurrection, and the Life, and who only hath immor- 
tality, to bestow. Life only in Christ — though the great 
burden, of the Divine religion — is, however, an end to be 
attained, by the use of means, and the Gospel embraces 
the several steps by which the salvation it offers is 
secured. This redemption of the life man lost in Adam, 
is through faith and obedience, in the second Adam. 

We have seen, that man lost God's favor, and his own 
life in Eden, by disbelief and consequent disobedience of 
the Divine law. This brought death into the world. In 
devising the means of man's recovery from this fall, infi- 
nite love and wisdom require him to retrace his steps — 
to return to the path of duty by belief and obedience to 
the same Law-giver. Hence the gospel, the new com- 
mand, addressed to all the world, requires us to believe, 
and to obey the law, contained in the great commission 
which Christ gave to His Apostles, and Disciples : "Go 



193 

ye into all the worlrl, and preach the gospel to every 
creature. He that believeth," (what you preach) "and is 
baptized, shall be saved." "Go, teach all nations, baptiz- 
ing them," etc. 

Here we see all is harmony. Reason and Faith and 
Obedience all aojree, and all conduce to an intelligent 
apprehension and submission to "the truth as it is in 
Jesus." The Bible invites us saying, "Come, let us rea- 
son together." It admonishes us that "without faith 
(of the gospel) it is impossible to please God," and it 
instructs us that, "to ohey is better than sacrifice, and to 
hearken than the fat of lams." The command to be 
baptized ("immersed," honestly translated), in the name 
of the Lord Jesus, is the test of our loyalty and obedi- 
ence to God's law. Like the command to the first man 
in Eden, not to eat of the forbidden fruit, it was in 
itself, an indifferent action ; but its supreme importance 
arose from its being a divine command. So the new 
command delivered to us through the second Adam — 
baptism — derives its value to us from its being a Divine 
Law, and must therefore be obeyed. 

In order to show the growing discontent with the cur- 
rent religious faith, we cite in a recent number of the Con- 
temporary Review a very striking paper entitled, " J'Ae 
LorcVs Prayer and the Chureh^'' embodying a correspon- 
dence between the eminent art critic, John Ruskin^ D. O. 
X., and Mr. Malleson, a clergyman of the Established 
Church. In these letters, Mr. Ruskin, widely known in the 
literary world, and a layman in the Anglican Church, pro- 



194 

pounds certain strictures, doubts, etc., in respect to the 
church expoundings of the Bible text, and indulges in 
quite free, but fair, criticisms which impeach the general 
worth of orthodox scriptural interpretations. These he 
finds very unsatisfactory, notably so in respect to the 
Lord's Praj^er and the Gospel, and demands some method 
of improved construction. Mr. Ruskin says in Letter III : 

"Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain 
words and short terras as that a plain man may under- 
stand it, and, if so, would it not be in a quite primal 
sense, desirable that it should be so, rather than left to 
be gathered out of the Thirty-nine "Articles, etc." And 
again, in Letter IV, "Might not such definition, accepta- 
ble to the entire body of the Church of Christ, be 
arri\?ed at by merely explaining in their completeiess 
and life the terms of the Lord's Prayer, the first words 
taught to children all over the Christian world." 

Canon Farrar, too, writes: a book to answer the 
question, "J^oes Death end alW 

lu his ''New Bepuhli';'" William. H. Mallock— the 
widely known author graphically convenes for discussion 
and for better light, the leading spirits in religion, litera- 
ture, science and art, in England, to discover the problem 
of life and devise the remedy for the solution of its mys- 
teries. 

In our own country. Dr. Bellows discloses his appre- 
hension of having lost his way, in his work, "A Re-State- 
ment of Christian Doctrine." Dr. Ewer publishes his 
misgivings, whilst discarding Popery, in his enquiry: "is 



195 

Protestantism a FaUare?'' an enquiry which the New 
York Herald considerably enlarges by opening its ample 
columns to the discussion of the startling question : "is 
Christianity a Failaref'' 

A new phase of this burning desire for more light 
appears to us in A. Wilford Hall's '-^Prohlem of Human 
Life, Here and Hereafter^'' a volume of 500 pages, 
with a title most pregnant and suggestive, in which the 
learned author vigorously assaults the entrenched camp 
of Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, and the school of Helm- 
holtz and the German scientists, and endeavors to wrest 
from their writings some • unwilling proof, on scientific 
grounds, of the immortality of the soul as "the only pos- 
sible hope of knowing more of the mysteries of the uni- 
verse than is afforded by our present brief and circum- 
scribed life". In this full and learned work, on the ample 
topic of "^Ae Problem of Human JOife, Here and Herer 
after^'' the author, never discovers or suspects the least 
trace of the only true foundation of future life, namely, 
the gi'and, sublime, Bible doctrine of the Resurrection of 
the Dead—2ix\ affecting illustration of the little value of 
"science, falsely so-called," in such discussions. 

It was doubtless the perception of these "shadows, 
clouds and darkness," which rest upon our future pros- 
pects that served to extort from Matthew Arnold, in his 
" God and the Bihle^^ this remarkable confession : '*At 
the present moment two things about the Christian Reli- 
gion must surely be clear to any body with eyes in his 



196 

head. One is that men cannot do without it; the other 
that they cannot do with it as it is." 

Such imposing testimony, from competent and trust- 
worthy witnesses, converging like so many rays of light, 
from a thousand stars, cannot fail to produce the con- 
viction, on candid minds, that it is quite time to pause, 
and seriously to ask, if in "these times of the Gentiles," 
as in the closing days of the Jewish age, Christ is not 
rejected in the House of His friends by those, who yet 
claim to wear His name, and that, "Lords many and 
Gods many" have usurped His place in their affection 
and worship. "iVb^ this man but Barabbas'''' is no lon- 
ger the ciy of the scoffing Jews alone, who rejected Him 
on Calvary. It is Himself who says : "Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, He that entereth not into the sheep-fold by 
the door but clhnbeth up some other way, the same is a 
thief and a robber." 

Religion "as it is'''' has truly ceased to be what Chris- 
tianity was, and should be, as it came to us from its 
Divine Founder. In place of the Paganized Counterfeit, 
we must reenthrone its primitive purity and simplicity. 
Is it wonderful, in view of this corruption of the Bible 
Religion — this predicted, wide-spread "falling away," 
(apostacy) — Acts xx, 30. I. Thess., ii, 3. — this "departure 
from the faith," — I Tim., iv, 1 — "having tiieir ears 
turned from the truth, unto fables," that a marked, and 
well known, declension of interest and confidence in 
religion, in Church attendance, and religious worship, 
in Europe and America, is one of the most striking facts 



197 

in modern history. We know, too, tliat Missions, and 

missionary efforts in Heathen lands, are so barren of 

success, and have declined so notably, that the Heathen 

advances, and the Missionary recedes before him, and 

surrenders the field, to the desolate reign of darkness 

and superstition. Even in the so called "Christian 

World" of Europe and America, the statistics shew that 

the world and its corruptions, and temptations, have 

fatally ensnared the Church, so that honest and earnest 

men complain with reason, that it is the world that is 

converting the Church, and not the Church, that converts 

the world. 

Mathew Arnold truly says, "Men cannot do without 

Christianity," for it is a natural need of fallen humanity. 

An able writer in BlacJcwoocVs Magazine has well said : 

"Notwithstanding all philosophy, man is born to believe, to 
reverence and adore, as well as to think and feel. There 
would be neither scope, nor depth, nor progress in human 
life, if the intellects of human beings were forever wrapped 
in the tight swaddling cloths which metaphysicians and ana- 
lysts can prepare. The poetry of life is perpetually bursting 
out, and neither in the affairs of this world nor the next, can 
the spirit of a man be restricted from believing, and hoping, 
and imagining more than it either can see or know at present. 
Eeligion has been in all ages, races and climates, a universal 
instinct of mankind. It is the master-passion of the human 
race ; it has been the basis of laws, of governments, of cus- 
toms and institutions ; it has torn and lacerated society in 
all its forms ; it has been the curse and console. tion of man- 
kind as it has been false or true. We may denoi^nce its par- 
ticular manifestations, but that the spirit of man cleaves to the 
world to come is as true as that he stands erect in this world. 



THJE EARLY CHUBCH CBEEDS, 

In this somewhat ungracious, but necessary work of 
criticism and correction of popular errors in religpon, it 
would be unjust not to recall the creditable fact, that 
some of the formal creeds, of modern denominations of 
Christendom, are less objectionable in doctrine than the 
current expoundings of them, by the clergy. It is to be 
regretted that the Churches are not always as Scriptu- 
rally expository as the creed requires them to be. It is 
a notable illustration, of this observation, that the refor- 
mer, Luther, and his colleagues, were bolder and better 
in the beginning, than in the end of their career. In 
their dauntless opposition to the Romish Church, like 
the Galatians they "began, but did not run well." Hav- 
ing begun in the spirit, they speedily yielded to the flesh, 
and at length, made themselves transgressors by aban- 
doning the faith they had received, in preaching doc- 
trines which destroyed it.. 

In the early part of his career, Luther wrote in 
defence of his theses, in 1520: "I permit the Pope to 
make articles of faith for himself, and his faithful — such 
as that he is emperor of the world — king of Heaven and 
God upon earth — that the soul is immortal, with all those 
monstrous opinions, to be f o und in the Koman dung-hill 
of decretals." 

Bishop Patrick, and Bishop Jeremy Taylor — both 
quoted by Dr. Whately, bear similar testimony: The 
former said: *'Many of the ancient fathers look upon 
the expulsion of Adam from Eden as a merciful dispen 



199 

sation — that man miglit not be perpetuated m a state of 
sin." The latter writes, "Whatsoever had a beginning, 
can also have an ending, * * * Qq^ }iad 
prepared a tree in Paradise, to have supported Adam in 
his artificial immortality: immortality was wo^ in his 
natoi-e — but in the hands and parts; in the favor and 
super additions of God." 

Archdeacon Blackburn said : *The more any man is 
convinced of the immortality of the soul, from the 
principles of Aristotle, or Des Cartes, the less will he 
concern himself about the gospel account of futurity," 
adding, "All those fine spun notions of the immortality 
of the soul, and all the artificial deduction from that 
principle, teaching nothing but the art of blowing schol- 
astic bubbles, will certainly go peaceably to their rest, 
with out the least detriment, either to sound learning or 
true religion." 

Bishop Tillotson in 1774, in his Sermons, admits that 
the immortality of the soul is rather supposed — or taken 
for granted — than expressly revealed in the Bible. Tim- 
othy D wight, D. D., L. L. D., once President of Yale 
College, in Sermons, Vol. I, p. 163, says: "Whatever has 
been created, can certainly be annihilated, by the power 
which created it — the continuance of the soul, must 
therefore depend absolutely on the will of God. But 
that will can never be known by His creatures, unless 
He is pleased to disclose it. Without Revelation there- 
fore, the immortality of the soul must be entirely uncer- 
tain." 
This declension was due, in large part, no doubt, to the 



200 



multitude of errors the Reformers detected in the Romish 
Church, and to the brief time afforded, in the midst of 
such active contention, to expose and rebuke them. 
Luther and his colleagues manfully defended the great 
cardinal tenets of salvation by faith and not by works, 
either of the Jewish or Papal law. They contended for 
the right of private or individual judgment in matters of 
conscience, and for the p iramount authority of the Word 
of God, and its free circulation. Beyond these they did 
not go. They did not seem to apprehend the meaning 
and significance of the Gospel — did not discern its con- 
nection with the coming of Christ, the resurrection of 
the dead, and his kingdom and millenial reign on earth, 
over all nations, with the immortalized saints as associ- 
ate Kings and Rulers with him. They seem to have ad- 
hered to the Papistical dogma of Purgatory or Paradise, 
or of the dead going to Heaven or Hell at death,, 
thus practically dispensing with the resurrection and 
judgment day ; and thej did not question the pagan the- 
ory of an eternity of torments to the' wicked in the 
burning flames of hell, as a vital point of Christian doc- 
trine. Although they accomplished a great work in 
relaxing the shackles with which the Romish Priesthood 
had tightly fettered the human mind in ignorance and 
fear, they left it in bondage still to many serious relig- 
ious errors, both of doctrine and practice, from which 
the wonderful progress of discovery in other departments 
of knowledge, has not yet worked out emancipation, so 
that three succeeding centuries have not sufficed to fin- 



201 

ish the work the Reformers only bea^un. Hence the bat* 
tie with error must again be renewed. 

In a very recent work, entitled, "Xf/e Everlasting, 
What is it? Whence is tif Whose is itf b}^, J. H, Pet- 
tin gell, A. M., a Congregational Minister, and author of 
Platonism, vs. Christianity, and other works, and just 
publishedin Philadelphia, we have a copious and exhaust- 
ive exposition of the Life Everlasting doctrine, in which, 
from sacred and patristic sources, the author proves his 
point conclusively, as to the entire mortality of man in his 
present state, and that there is no future immortality, no 
eternal life out of Christ. Consequently that the current 
faith, or, rather credulity of mankind, in respect to inhe- 
rent immortality in all men, has no foundation in reason 
or Scripture. We regret that our limits forbid citations 
from this able work. 

The occasion is appropriate to cite, in this connection, 
the very significant fact that, besides the profound silence 
of the Holy Scriptures, as to any doctrinal theory of 
immortal souls cherished, or countenanced by the apos- 
tles and Evangelists when they wrote, and left their 
testimony behind them, there is little trace of such 
Pagan inventions even in the early symbols and creeds of 
the first Protestants against the Koman usurpation. If 
we examine what is called, though without authority, the 
Apostles creed, which is endorsed and incorporated into 
. the Protestant Episcopal Church of Great Britain, and 
the United States, we discover, that the immortal soul 
theory and the endless torment dogma, are both cpnsplc. 



202 

uously absent, and, in lieu of tbem, we have expressly 
included and in logical sequence, "The Resurrection of 
the body (the dead) and the Life Everlasting." The same 
creed asserts of our blessed Lord, that He {not Sis body 
only) was crucified, dead and buried, that He descended 
into Hell [Hades, the grave), that He rose from the dead 
(death-state,) the third day, etc., each, and every item of 
which is plainly inconsistent with the Pagan, but now 
orthodox theory that the dead, before resurrection and 
judgment are consigned to Paradise, Heaven or Hell, 
and are still living, conscious beings, and their destiny 
being already fixed, unalterably, Resurrection and Judg- 
ment, both future events according to the Bible, are ren- 
dered nugatory and void. To the same conclusion, 
we are irresistibly driven by the Thirty-nine articles 
of Religion, engrafted in the same Church creed, 
not one of which afford any basis for the Pagan 
dogma. The history of these articles, in their 
original, and amended form, is pertinent and instructive. 
We are indebted to the work of Dr. Pettingell, just 
referred to, for the following historical statement: He 
says under the head of "Modern Belief," p. 70-Yl. "Of 
all the great churches of this country, there is more free- 
dom of opinion, certainly on this question, in the Episco- 
pal Church, than in any other, and probably, more who 
hold to our view than in any other, and they hold it 
unmolested. There is nothing in their symbols of faith, 
their prayers or their liturgy that conflicts with it, but, 
on the other hand, much to favor it The co»stant reo. 



203 

ognition, in their collects, and other forms, of Christ as 
the great source of Life, Eternal Life, the Life Ever- 
lasting is quite remarkable. * * * 

It is interesting to note, that the confession of faith in 
this Church, now numbering Thirty-nine Articles, in the 
Anglican originally numbered forty-two; but in convo- 
cation under the presidency of Arch-Bishop Parker, in 
1562 the two articles sustaining this papistical dogma, 
namely ,the immortality of the soul, and the eternity of 
future suffering, were suppressed. Since then, the offi- 
cial authority of the Anglican Church has declared that 
the doctrine of eternal hell, is not an established dogma 
of the Church. 'No longer ago than 1864, the question 
was tried by the judicial committee, whether endless tor- 
ment was a doctrine of the Church or not. In the case 
of Wilson vs. Fendill it was argued on both sides, by 
most able counsel, and after a mature deliberation, the 
Lord Chancellor gave judgement — the two Arch-bishops 
concurring — that it was not a doctrine of the Church, 
"for," said he, "to affirm it to be so would be reinstating 
the expelled articles, which we have no power to do." 

While willingly concurring in much of the merit Dr. 
Pettingell awards to the creed of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, it is due to candor and the cause of truth, 
to mark some note-worthy drawbacks to this eulogy, 
especially when we see the votaries of that creed, claim- 
ing for it the high paternity of the apostles of Christ. 
This symbol of faith, called, "The apostles' Creed," is 
quite as conspicuous for what it omits as for what U 



204 

recites, as fundamental for salvation. Only think of 
these inspired teachers of the doctrine of Christ, proceed- 
ing to formulate a creed for the disciples, and for all 
mankind, and for all Gentile times, and yet to give in it 
no statement — to make no mention even of the Gospel of 
the kingdom of God — of the coming of Christ to reign 
on earth, and over all nations, in great power and glory, 
of the Resurrection of the Saints to immortality, to 
share with their glorious Head in that exalted Destiny. 
Yet every (Christian instructed in the truth, knows that it 
is these "things of the kingdom of God and of the name 
of Jesus Christ," which constitute the subject matter 
of "the Gospel," which is "the glad tidings of great jjoy 
which shall be to all people," and which, with baptism as 
the obedience of faith the Author and finisher of the 
faith commanded them to preach, and teach for Salva- 
tion among all nations ! Mark xvi, 16-27. Acts viii, 12. 
Romans xvi, 25-27. Omissio-ns so radical as these would 
seem to dispose effectually of the pretension that such 
was in reality the formula of the "apostles creed," a con- 
clusion also repudiated by the entire absence of all men- 
tion of it in the "Acts of the Apostles," a History 
expressly preserved, to give a certain knowledge of what 
they said and did, for the instruction and guidance of 
the Saints who should come after them. The apostles, 
were not creed-makers. Their office was to make known 
and defend, what God through Moses and the Prophets, 
and Christ and the apostles had already declared. Any 
other creed would have been man-made^ and of no value; 



205 

for, if it contained only wliat was in the Word of God, 
it was useless and superfluous, and if it presumed to con- 
tradict, or to add to the Bible, it was pernicious and 
should be condemned. 

It is a fearful truth, and of fearful import to man, that 
at the present day, the Bible is the least read, and the 
least understood book in our libraries. The cause of this 
is obvious. We have been taught to believe from child- 
hood, by our teachers of religion, that the Bible is a hid- 
den mystery — that no one can understand it — that indeed 
it was not intended to be understood, and therefore it is 
our duty to take second-hand, from our religious 
teachers, their version or interpretation of it, without 
demur or appeal. We do not read and examine for our- 
selves. Hence, we either neglect it altogether, or sur- 
render ourselves blindly to the Church which means, 
of course, the Clergy, and — yet if like apostate Israel, 
we bring the Book to one that is learned — the clergy- 
man — saying : "Read this I pray thee"- he saith, "I can- 
not, for it is sealed," and if the Book is delivered to him 
that is not learned, saying : "Read this I pray thee," he 
saith, "I cannot, because, I am not learned. * * 

* Wherefore the Lord saith, "Forasmuch as 
this people draw near me with their mouth, and with 
their lips to honor me, but have removed their hearts far 
from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the pre- 
cept of men, therefore, * * * ^jie wisdom 
of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding 



206 

of their prudent men shall be hid." Isaiah xxix, 10-15. 

Man naturally loses interest in any subject which he 
cannot comprehend, or which he believes to be incapable 
of solution. 

It is earnestly to be hoped, that the reader may find in 
these pages some useful hints, and instructions from the 
Bible, which may enable him with ordinary diligence, to 
understand and appreciate God's Word, which in these 
"times of the Gentiles" is so confused and mystified by 
the traditions of men, as to be almost unintelligible to 
our perverted intellect. 

The personal return of Christ to the earth, the estab- 
lishment of His literal kingdom and reign with His 
saints, in Jerusalem, over the restored tribes of Israel, 
His dominion over all nations, as Lord and Governor of 
the nations upon earth, the consequent approaching 
downfall of all existing rule and authority over mankind, 
of all political, social, civil and ecclesiastical institutions 
among men, and the founding on their ruins, of the new 
empire under the Son of God and His associated saints, 
will fulfil the Divine promises delivered through Abraham, 
Moses, David, Daniel and the Prophets, and through our 
Lord and His apostles and saints. This consummation 
devoutly to be wished, is announced to us in its procla- 
mation, "in order to the obedience of faith," in "the 
Gospel (good news) of the kingdom of God," and consti- 
tutes, when apprehended, the key to unlock the meaning 
of the Holy Book, and make the whole volume intelli- 
gible and plain to the simplest mind. The Book opens 



207 

with the recital of God's Creatiou of the Heavens and 
the earth — the present Cosmos. It closes with the prom- 
ise of the creation of new Heavens and a new earth: 
•"Behold I create new Heavens and a new earth — I make 
all things new." The present world, the mortal life of 
man, spans the intermediate space which separates these 
eras, and mankind await, in the life or death state, the 
Divine consummation of God's plans. 

As the earth was the birth place of the first Adam 
and his race, so the same earth is the appointed birth- 
pLace, through the Hesurrection, of the Second Adam 
and His saints, who are the Sons of God. Hence, the 
popular delusions, constituting the warp and woof of 
modernized i'aganism, miscalled the ^'Christian'''' faith 
of our day, viz., the going to Heaven or a burning Hell 
at death, before resurrection, trial or judgement, and 
taking a final farewell of our native earth, altho' we are 
sternly confronted with the familiar fact, that we lie 
buried in her bosom, and without resurrection can never 
be released, these delusions, we repeat, derive no sanc- 
tion from the Bible, and are but the false and perni- 
cious legacies of a dark and gloomy superstition. 

It is the judicious remark of Dr. Good in his Book of 
Nature, that it seems to have been an unacountable 
habit of philosophers and theologians, at a very early day, 
to write and to speak of matter and the material world 
with contempt, as something base, or mean, unworthy of 
human regard or admiration, and hence, to charge an 
opponent, with being a maierialist, was to fix on him ai^ 



208 

odious accusation. He says truly there seer^s no ground 
for this unfounded prejudice, and he .points to the fact 
that God, wlio is the author of both matter and spirit, 
pronounced all the works He had made, to be "good, very 
good." There seems no doubt that this absurd and per- 
nicious prejudice, against things real and sensible, in our 
world, springs from our false religious education, and 
our ready adoption of the fanciful theories of life and 
death, lield by the Heathen Philosophers, and now unhap- 
pily so generally current among us. Thus we have 
learned to spiritualize and to disembody our race, and 
even our world, and we utter as we have, seen, the patent 
absurdities, "man never dies," "there is no death," and 
even "there is no matter." It is idle to reason gravely 
with such shallow sophists, but it seems enough to adopt 
the noble bard's wise policy of "answering a fool accor- 
ding to his folly." Byron wrote : 

" When Bishop Berkeley said 

' There was no matter,' 

It was no matter 
What the Bishop said." 

No wonder such childish fancies lead captive the 
judgment and make men easy victims of the phantas- 
magoria of Heathen Mythology. 

Without arguing the immaterial issue, we may only say, 
that if there is no matter, there is no mind. There can 
be no smoke without fire, no life without organism. 
Imagine if you can, something before you perceptible to 
your senses, and yet without form, shape or substance. 
Eveii the subtle lightning reveals itself to us in its zig- 



209 

zag course, its dazzlino^ vibrations, its vivid flash. The 
winds of Heaven are seen and felt, as they approach us, 
and by the effect they produce on our senses, but who 
ever saw an impalpable soul, or conversed with a disem- 
bodied spirit? All the evidence, all experience and all 
the analoQ^ies of nature and Scripture, are against the 
theory of ghosts or disembodied spirits. The minister- 
ing "Spirit" in Job (Chapter iv,) passed before Eliphaz, 
but was manifest in "image and voice" to his senses- 
When the Apostle Paul speaks of saints raised from the 
dead, they appear in "bodies," and are not disembodied. 
He says, "There is a natural body, and there is a spirit- 
ual body," and he proves in the same connection, (1st. 
Corinthians, xv,) that the saints will live forever, by 
reason of their being clothed upon, at the resurrection 
with immortal bodies, and not because they have immor- 
tal souls. He believed and taught the immortality of 
the body; the philosophers, on the contrary, held and 
taught the immortality of the soul. The second Adam, 
"the Lord, the Spirit," when He appeared to His disci- 
ples, after the resurrection, and after being clothed upon 
with immortality, having assumed His Spirit-nature, 
came nevertheless in a visible and tangible, though spir- 
itual body. He said to Thomas : "Reach hither thy 
hand and thrust it into my side," etc. 

THE LIFE PBOBLEM. 

We have already laid before the reader some evidence 
of tlie mistakes and errors which characterize the efforts 



210 

of the wisest philosophers, poets 'and sages of onr owti 
and former generations, to propound some satisfactory- 
solution of the problem of man's creation, constitution 
and destiny. 

The present Kosmos of creation has endured for 
nearly six_thousand years, yet, man with all his progress 
in science and knowledge, has not been able to solve to 
his own or others satisfaction, the question which meets 
him on the threshold of existence and, unless he be 
taught of God, goes with him, unanswered to the grave. 
That question is, "what is life, and whence do we 

DERIVE IT? 

It would be unhandsome not to acknowledge the latest 
of these efforts in this direction, from a source entitled 
to high respect. Very recently, during the preparation 
of these pages, the writer has received from Dr. Elliott 
Coues^ of Washington, "Professor of Anatomy in the 
National Medical College; Member of the Philosophical 
and Biological Societies of Washington; of the National 
Academy of Science, etc., etc., a pamphlet copy of his 
address entitled '■Biogen : a Speculation on the Origin 
and Nature of Life, read before the Philosophical Society 
of Washington, May 6, 1882." 

The learned and accomplished Scientist modestly 
styles his address, "a Speculation^^ which would have 
prepared us to treat it as a sort of tentative experi- 
ment, in an old but unsatisfactory field of inquiry, but 
he does not remit us to an inference. He plainly writes 
in the opening page of the address: "So far am I from 



211 

supposing, that the Cr%ix of tlie life-problem will be solved 
to-night, I do not hesitate to declare my belief that it has 
been resolved, neither by science nor by philosophy, and 
. that it is insoluble in any royal water that can be com- 
pounded of to-day's science and philosophy." 

In this work, the Professor surprises us by the intrepid 
boldness and freedom of his admissions of the poverty 
of science, and the vanity of philosophy to shed one ray 
of light on the insoluble mystery of life. I quote some 
passages from his candid pages, that the orthodox reader 
may see that the shifting sands of the desert are quite as 
firm and stable as the shattered foundation, on which his 
own cherished superstition rests. 

On page 4, He says: "Neither science nor philoso- 
phy affords any proved basis for the most universal of 
human beliefs — the existence in man of an immortal 
soul," * * * * «4^o that if he desires 

that which most men desire (an explanation of the mys- 
tery of life) he must look elsewhere for the satisfaction 
of that desire." 

"The scientific fact is — and by scientific fact I mean 
something that is positively known to be true — that life 
has never been ascertained to have any other origin than 
in antecedent lifeP p. 7. 

"Life in the concrete is, of course the sum of the phe- 
nomena manifested by animated nature; of life .in the 
abstract, of the essence or nature of that peculiar attri- 
bute of plants and animals, apart from its material 
manifestations no Totowledge whatever seems possible, p. 



212 

13. — "I have thus far, purposely refrained from using the 
word^ ^'Spirit.'''' But I cannot proceed with my idea of 
life, without introducing tliat term, to which I am aware 
much of the accredited science and pMlosophy of the 
day objects as bemg '-'■sound without sense,'''' p. 15. 

" Oior ignorance is absolute. If it is ever overcome, no 
doubt we shall learn, what and where is the connection 
between mind and matter." p. 21. "Let us not deceive 
ourselves with the giving new names to old things. Call 
them what you please — modern materialistic and atheis- 
tic notions about life, are every one of them disguises of 
the plain statement, that a self-created atom of matter 
lays an ^^g that ' will hatch — call this a monstrous 
absurdity — an instigation of the Devil, if you choose. I 
can call it neither science, nor philosophy, nor religion 
nor any thing that is learned, wise or true," p. 25 

Such is the candid testimony of an accomplished 
scholar, an accredited expounder and high priest, in the 
very sanctuary of modern science and philosophy, of the 
wonderful wisdom of the world, seen in the light of 
"reason's torch," and the open blaze of human learning. 
To such profound ignorance and darkness visible, Mr. 
Ingersoll, with Darwin, Huxley etc., would consign us, 
putting away the blessed light which radiates perpetually 
from the Sun of our mental firmament, the inspired word 
of God! 

On seeing a newspaper sketch of this address, the 
writer contributed a notice of it to the Washington Post.* 

*To THE Ebitor of THE PosT : — The receiit lecture before the Philosophical 
Society of Washington by Dr. Couee, on the "Possibilities of Protoplasm/ 



2l3 
This led Professor Coues to send him a printed copy. 

wbich involved the orisin and nature of life, suc^geetB the rciluv;tion that it is 
conceded by the world of scientists and philosophers, that th'e true knowl- 
edge of the oriem of life is as yet undiscovered, notwithstanding the won- 
deriiil progress in modern times, in all other departments of human 
know edge. 

WiihuULStopping to trace out the cause ot this phenomenal result, let the 
writer suggest, in the fewest and simplest words, and w'thout further pur- 
suit of the devious though beaten track of philosophical speculation, which 
has always hitherto misled explorers deplorably, that tiie mysterious secret 
so ardently sought is disclosed to us, in a field of inv^'Stigation which the 
scientists never enter— namely, The Bible — The Word ot God — wh^re alone 
the vexed problem is solved. It is the Bible— God's revelation to man of his 
own origin, nature and destiny, that alone imparts this knowledge. It 
would be passing straage- more wonderful than a Divine miracle— that 
Our « 'reator should place this boon in our hands, to acquaint us with Him- 
eelf and with ourselves, and to make known our relations' and duties to IJim, 
and yet fail to inform us of the source and nature of the life He gives us 
For nearly 6.000 years this Instruction has Deen supplied to our race. Like 
all other secrets disclosed to us. however, by revelation— which is out 
another name for true science, 'man's unfolding of God's book of nature" - 
it is too simple and obvious to receive credence from the learned scietiiist 
and proud philosopher. Yet it is written in the Bible account of the human 
race, stereotyped and enduring to the last recorded syllable of time— Genesis 
ii 7: ''The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."' 

The Philo''o>hers. with all the resources of human learning and science at 
their command, have never improved on this definition of the origin and. 
nature of life. Life, then, is the gift of God, bestowed on all breathing 
things through the medium of the breath of life, which. includes the spirit of 
God, pervadiiisrand i)ermeating the atmosphere which surrounds us. What 
Moses calls the '-breath of life," Job, xxvii, 3, calls "the spirit of God in 
my nostrils," and in ch. xxxrii, 4, he says, "The spirit of God hath made me 
and the breath of the Almighty hath given me lile." 

To the same effect St. Paul taught the idolatrous Athenian philosophers, 
occupied with the same barren speculations which Professor Coues dis- 
cusses. Speaking of God he says : "In Him we live and move and have our 
being." The Great Teacher sent from God, taught "God is spirit," and Jeho 
vah salth of Himself, "Behold I fill Heaven and earth," and the Psalmist 
David ass su ilimely and in adoritg wonder, "Whither shall I go from thy 
spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into Hen-^eu, 
thou art there; If I make my bed in hell ( he grave) behold, thou art there; 
If I|aKe the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parrs of the 
sea; even ther--, shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me." 
It is this universal, all pervasive, animating and vitilizing spirit that ii parts 
life to man-and all animated nature during life, and withdrawal of which 
at death from man no longer cai)able of breathing the breath or the spirit of 
life from God. consigns him to his native dust, from which he will emerge 
again by the Divine fiat, at the resurrection of the dead. 

Now this reasoning and conclusion, may not be acceptable to the orthodox 
scientist or theologian. It maj' seem to you so odd and so far off the beaten 
track of popular credulity as to bar admission to even your broad and inde- 
pendent columns; rievertheless it is the truth, I humbly submit, which 
neither science nor theology can successfully combat. 



214 

The higli position of the lecturer in the Scientific and 
Literary World, his official connection with the National 
Medical College, and with learned societies and acade- 
mies of Science, etc., invest his utterances with a pecul- 
iar authority, with those Who are accustomed to draw 
both instruction and inspiration from such sources. The 
accomplished and venerable Professor, William JB. Bog- 
ers, very recently deceased — formerly of the Faculty of 
the Universityof Virginia, and among the foremost of 
the renowned Savans of our day, occupied the chair 
during the delivery of this address. We may therefore 
regard this latest as the best outgrowth and exposition 
of human science on the subject, in our country at least. 
Behold then the confessed weakness, the deplorable igno- 
rance, the paltry outcome of the vain philosophy, and 
science falsely so called, which constitutes the pres- 
ent wisdom of the world in this department of human 
learning! When we open the word of God and hearken 
to the voice of inspiration, to the simple teachings of 
that "Spirit," to which the Professor informs us with 
commendable candor, his colleagues "in accredited Science 
and Philosophy," have the rashness to object, as being 
"sound without sense," can we be surprised that the Holy 
Scriptures should warn us against such philosophy and 
science, ^''falsely so called?" It is this wisdom of the 
world (which "with God is foolishness") that the candid 
scientist offers for our instruction and guidance in respect 
to life, its nature and issues! With him Biogen (the 
discovery of the origin and nature of life) is an admitted 



215 

failure. In "his hands, it is the art of guessing — tlie sport 
of "speculation" — the Science of conjectare, the Philos- 
ophy of ignorance and vanity — the literature of mere 
agnosticism and as all its votaries are too wise to 
learn and the ethics of the professor forbid investigation 
in the light of "^Ae spirit^'' which is God's revelation of 
the mystery, he must needs retire ingloriously and 
abashed from the field of enqiury. 

With the theologian, the case is even worse. His pro- 
fessed mission is to make known "the things of the Spirit 
of God." How does he fill it? . By opening the Divine 
oracles and reverently rehearsing their testimony on the 
subject? No, but fearful of the silly cry of uttering 
"sound without sense," he turns away from the true light 
and follows the blind leaders of the blind. Is it strange 
that he should also fall with them into the ditch? 

But let us not fail in justice to Professor Coues. In 
the conclusion of his address he catches a glimpse of a 
rightful solution of his hard problem, which, if logically 
pursued, with his characteristic candor, will lead him 
from the dark labyrinth into the light of day. He says, 
page 25. "Whence emanated matter in the beginning is 
inscrutable. From no where, certainly, if not frona the 
self conscious — self determining universal mind which 
willed to so become manifest. Where to? Nowhere, 
certainly, if not to whence it came to complete the circle 
— symbol of infinity — Whose quadrature is unknown." 

Here we have God at last as the Source and Giver of 
life, which is imparted by His Spirit. Again, "the 



216 

vital principle I am bound to consider as the most direct 
and immediate natural manifestation we have of the 
great First Cause and consequently to refer it at once 
far back of any such secondary cause, as a, mechanical or 
chemical law. * * * Being absolutely beyond 
the scrutiny of the physical senses, it would scarcely 
appear to fall within the scope either of science or phil- 
osophy, and I doubt that human reason, unenlightened by 
revelation, can learn much about it, for that would be to 
find out God by taking thought." 

"Since the retiring president of this society has declared 
that neither science nor philosophy affords any founda- 
tion or proof upon which any conscious mind may build 
hopes of that immortality of the soul (here he means 
future life) which is to that same mind, a necessary con- 
ditioning of existence, it is to be hoped, that science may 
yet discover facts enough, and philosophy find truth 
enough, to render that happy result possible ; for until 
they do, they are together obviously incompetent to deal 
loith the life problem.'''' p. 26. 

In this condition of being persuaded that knowledge 
is impossible whilst '-hmenlightened by revelation,'''' the 
professor has at last found the key which unlocks tlie 
mysteries that enshroud the scientists in darkness and 
dismay. It is when "enlightened by revelation" only 
that we see our way clear. 

LIFE 18 NOT INHEBENT, BUT EXTEBNAL TO 

MAN. 

It is the Spirit of God, the breath of the Almighty, 



217 



which gives life to man, according to the express terms 
of the revelation He has made to us. "God breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a 
living soul," thus man still lives; for the first act of the 
new born infant is to breathe the breath of life thi'o' its 
nostrils. His Spirit acting on organized dust, produces 
motion and manifests life, in all animals and plants. 
Ordinarily it imparts life only, on certain prescribed con- 
ditions. These require in men and animals, a certain 
antecedent structure of bones and flesh, such as are 
found to exist in the substance or body of the unborn 
child. It's life before birth is, we know no«J independent 
but derived from its mother, through whose breathing 
the child lives. This dependent embryotic life, drawn 
from its mother, is at birth exchanged for an independ- 
ent existence derived direct from God, by inhaling the 
breath of life which embodying the Spirit of God, per- 
vades, and permeates the world of air, and earth and fire 
and water which form in combination the elements of 
our animated existence. This breath, or Spirit of God 
fills all space, giving life or destroying it, at His Sover- 
eign will or pleasure. It's source is not inherent in man as 
immortal soulists teach. It is, on the contrary, external to 
him and is the special gift of God to all born into the 
world; to endure until life is destroyed and succeeded by 
death, when the "dust returns to the eartli as it was, and 
the spirit returns to God who gave it." Eccles. xii, 7. 

This we submit to the puzzled scientist, is the Bible 
'''■Biogenr It has at least the merit of being short and 



218 

simple. How completely it corresponds with our obser- 
vation and experience of the laws of life — how fully it 
harmonizes with the Word of inspiration ! It is the Bible 
that tells us, "In Him (God) we live and move and have 
our being," that "He knoweth our frame," that "He remem- 
bereth we are dust," that "He is the God in whose 
hand our breath is, that "in His hand is the soul (life) of 
every living thing, and the breath of all mankind," and 
finally that "all things are of God," that "Without His 
Spirit was not anything made that was made," that "in 
Him was Life, and the Life was (or become) the light of 
men." 

Such is the life we derive from our first parents, under 
the Adamic organization and constitution of things, and 
as he our Father, became, by the fall, corruptible and 
mortal — "of the earth, earthy"— we his offspring, partake 
of his fallen nature and inherit his mortal destiny. We 
thus ratify the law of our being, and fulfil, to the letter, 
the first penalty and the first prophecy of the Scripture : 
''''Dust thou art and unto to dust shalt thou return.^'' 

Now if any should ask in view of our brief mortal life 
— "Is that all that remains? Does death end all?" We 
reply, in truth, "That is what we get from the first Adam, 
dissolution, decay and death, for he lived and died, like 
ourselves, "under the ministration of death," and has no 
other or new life to bequeath to us." Hence to answer 
the oldest of all questions, "If a man die shall he live 
again?" We turn from the first Adam and point, how 
gladly, to the Second Adam, not a hving soul merely but 



219 

a life giving Spirit — not of the earth earthy — ^bnt the 
Lord from Heaven, the Lord, the Spirit, to Him in whom 
Our life is hid, who is "our Life" and who says of Him- 
self, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and immedi- 
ately repairs to the grave of the dead Lazarus and there 
triumphantly proves and illustrates the truth and power 
of His words, by the resurrection of his friend from the 
death state. 

We are taught in Holy Writ that "life and immor- 
tality are brought to light thro' the Gospel^'' and not by 
any other means; that "God so loved the world, that He 
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," that 
"the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal 
life through Jesus Christ our Lord," that we are "to seek 
for immortality," that, "God only hath immortality,'' 
which He will impart to His faithful servants thro' the 
Lord of Life, by the Resurrection at His coming, and in 
His kingdom, and that, in fine, "tljis is the record that 
God hath given to us, eternal life, and this life is in His 
Son; he that hath the Son, hath life, and he that hath 
not the Son of God, hath not life." 

Here we see plainly that immortality is contingent and 
conditional, and is wo^,as taught in the Religion and 
Philosophy of these modern times, the natural birth-right 
and inheritance of all men. These conditions are that 
we should be in Christy that we should be engrafted into 
the Second Adam, and become partakers of the Life and 
Immortality which He alone bestows at the resurrection 



220 

of the just, and whicli shall be brought unto us at the rev- 
elation (return) of Jesus Christ," from the Father's right 
hand. This process of being now incorporated into 
Christ is by faith in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, 
by the obedience of faith in baptism, and by a patient 
continuance, afterwards, in well doing in a new life of 
integrity in the sight of God and man. As our first life 
in Adam was lost by disbelief and disobedience to God's 
law, so our new immortal life will be secured to us, in 
the Second Adam, by belief and obedience to the law of 
God. 

From such premises we are surely authorized to 
answer the question that man, placed under opportunities 
of knowledge, and consequently of responsibility, will 
live again in the Resurrection, thro' the power of Him 
who holds the keys of Death and the Grave, the right- 
eous to have a new and immortal life bestowed on them 
with the glory, honor, and blessedness which belong to 
that happy era, and the ungodly to be judged and suffer 
a just retribution according to their deeds in this mortal 
life, not in endless misery, but ^\\o%e final end is destruc- 
tion in the second death. When tliat is finished, not 
having acquired any right or title to immortality, through 
Christ, they will remain forever in their native earth, a 
second death, which blots them out of the land of the 
living and removes them forever from a scene in which 
they could bear no useful or honorable part. 

THE FBEVALENT APO STAGY FROM THE TBUTH. 

We are persuaded that many reasons in support of the 



221 



conclusions readied in this work will suggest themselves 
to the thoughtful and candid reader as he examines the 
proofs submitted. The Athenians to whom Paul 
preached (Acts xvii) the Gospel were as well instructed 
in the science a^id philosophy of the Schools as the 
Savans and the theologians of our own times. In fact 
our science (much of it falsely so called) is in the main 
the reproduction of their crude conjectures. Yet of so 
little real value were these acquisitions to them that 
when they heard St. Paul, preaching future life "through 
Jesus and the resurrection" they styled the doctrine 
"strange" and "new," and himself "a setter forth of 
strange gods." So now our philisophers and theologians 
though hearing the same doctrine that Paul preached 
confidently boasting that they have the light of the 
Bible which the superstitious Athenians had not, are 
with so much less excuse to this day, almost if not quite 
as ignorant and faithless of the true ground of future 
life, by the means, and on the conditions the Gospel disclo- 
ses, as their prototypes the Stoics and Epicureans of 
Athens. 

The ancient theology of an immortal soul in man, by 
which and not by a resurrection, he is to live again is so 
firmly seated in the mind of the modern theologian, that 
he too is beguiled into the worship < f the "Unknown 
God," and must be eren now, at this late da/, led by 
the Apostle's testimonj^ and logic — if led at all — to rec- 
ognize for the first time, the Being whom he ignorantly 
worships, tho' not called by that name. This sad but 



222 

truthful reflection affords proof of the depth and breadth 
of that apostacy from the Bible faith which the Savior 
and the Apostles foretold. See Matt, xxiv, 15. Acts xx, 
29-33. I. Peter i, 1-4. I. Timothy iv 1-8. I. Thess. i, 1-13. 
Jude, iv, 10-20. 

The Scriptures abound with these notes of warning 
as to the coming and well-nigh universal apostacy from 
the true faith, in the latter days of this Gentile, age and 
we read their fulfillment in modern and current history. 

In this attempted defense of the Bible Religion 
against the infidel assailant, I have passed in review 
many, if not all, the seemingly considerate objections 
which skeptical foes are accustomed to urge against 
the Holy Book. 

I would not, however, take final leave of a subject of such 
vast interest and importance, and pass by, unconsidered, a 
question — I will not call it an objection — which some very 
conscientious men have suggested and entertained in 
regard to one feature of the Divine plan of human crea- 
tion and redemption. That question relates to the 

OEIGIN AND USES OP EVIL. 

"Why did not God make man incapable of sinning 
while lie was pure and innocent in the garden of 
Eden? This would of necessity have prevented his 
fall and kept himself and his offspring always safe 
from the consequences which have followed from his 
disobedience." 



223 

It is not denied that such an objection to the plan act- 
ually adopted, seems formidable, if not unanswerable, in 
the mouth and the mind of a believer in the doctrine of 
the immortality of the soul which claims, that if man 
lives at all he must of necessity, live forever. In that 
view of the subject, seeing that according to our observa- 
tion and experience, the vast majority of our race reject 
or "neglect the great salvation" offered in the Gospel^ 
and that as Revelation teaches us that, in the present 
cosmos, the few comparatively will be saved .it is ob- 
jected that the scheme seems to work the loss of the 
many, and effects only the happiness of the few. A 
reasonable answer, will suggest itself to the reflecting 
mind, when we consider that we are scarcely competent, 
with present light, to resolve the question-— for as the 
eiid is not yet, and without a special revelation concern- 
ing it, and with our finite faculties, we cannot see that 
end, and therefore cannot decide as yet, whether it will 
be good or ill. But God sees the end from the begin- 
ning, and is therefore by far the best judge of what is 
ultimately wisest and best; and has, undoubtedly, in 
adapting the means to that end, acted as to Him was 
wisest and best. 

When, however, such men as Archbishop Whately in 
in his "Xi/e and Death,'' has ventured to maintain that 
we know not how to explain the existence of any evil at 
all in the world — when Canon Farrar, another high dig- 
nitary in the Church of England, in order to escape the 
argument draw;i from the predominance of evil, has writ- 



224 

ten his ^^Eternal HopeJ^ to answer the question, "Does 
Death end All?" when W. H. Mallock, the gifted 
author and scholarly layman, lately of the Anglican 
Church, has, in deep anxiety to know the truth, written 
"Js Life Worih JLiviKgf^ more recently, '■'The Neio 
Repuhlic^^ in whieh he attempts to solve for his own, 
and other's satisfaction, the imposing questions of our 
present life and future prospects, we see how deeply 
the public mind of Britain is agitated on these grand 
themes. ISTor, has our own country escaped the fever of 
similiar debates and discussions. We have from the 
American Press such works as E^ph Israel^ an exposition 
of prophecy etc., in which the origin of sin and of evil 
is Scripturally considered — a work of great learning and 
research, already referred to, by the late John Thomas, 
M. D., an Anglo-American residing in the United States; 
Dr. Bledsoe's ponderous " TheodtGy^^ Dr. Southall's, "i?e- 
cent Origin of Man^^ Dr. Ewer's, '^ Protestantism a Fail- 
ure^'' ''The Death of Death by an orthodox Layman^'' 
(Colonel John M. Patton, of Virginia,) A.Wilford Hall's 
Droblem of Human Life — Bere and Hereafter^^ and 
more recently Dr.J. H. Pettingell's The Life everlasting 
What is it? Whence is it? Whose is itf^ each agi- 
tating the cause, and uses of evil, in our world, and all 
springing from the same "Hill of Difficulty'' — the sup- 
posed eternity of human life and sin — the writer may 
lind some excuse for following, haud passubus c^quis,^ 
and in brief space, such learned, and scholarly explorers. 

♦ "With unequal steps." 



225 

An especial license to do so , jems to arise from the con- 
sideration that some of these have been led to confess 
that the results they have obtained have not been, 
wholly satisfactory even to themselves. 

With the Bible in onr hands which, as we have seen, 
makes short work of immortal-soulism — • the fruitful 
source of all these outside Scripture discussions and 
blunders, — we lay the axe at the root of the tree when 
we expose the flimsy sophism of man's inherent immor- 
tality, and point, as we do triumphantly, to that benign 
and blessed Book — the Bible — which acquaints us with 
God, restores us from the fall, and finally immortalizes 
man, through "ITim who is the Resurrection and 
the Life." 

The chief difficulty in the pathway of these speculative 
explorers who cannot harmonize their theories of God's 
wisdom and goodness with man's highest happiness, 
arises from their failure properly to define and apprehend 
the terms of their propositions. They ask "why did not 
the Creator make man of such a constitution, that both sin 
and evil would have been impossible." This obliges us 
in limine to ask; What is sin? What is evil? Un- 
fortunately most readers regard them as similar — almost 
of the same import — and even use them interchange- 
ably. But a little reflection will serve to correct this 
error. Now the Bible defines these terms for us. "Sin, 
saith the apostle John, "is the transgression of the law, " 
and evil, the opposite of good, is the penalty or "wages of 
sin." Hence it is written : "The wages of sin is death." 



226 

Thus we see one is the cause; the other the effect of 
transgression. If there were no law there -would be no 
sin, and if no sin there would be no evil; but as long as 
sin exists, evil which is suffering, must exist also, to be 
used as a punishment — as a check and restraint on the 
prevalence of sin. If I put my lingers in' the burning 
flame, I sin by the transgression of the law that the 
flame will burn me, and the pain I endure from the sin 
is its penalty which will tend to restrain me from repeat- 
ing the transgression. I commit the sin ai^d the Law- 
giver inflicts the evil, ^. e., the pain as the consequence 
of the transgression. If I had not broken the law, I 
would not have committed the sin, and would not have 
suffered the evil. The Lawgiver was not the author and 
creator of the sin. The transgression was my own act, 
but the Lawgiver visits on the sin the prescribed evil 
and penalty, and thus becomes the author and inflictor of 
the punishment. Applying this simple illustration to 
God's dealings with man, on a larger scale, we learn that 
while God is indeed the creator of the evil which is the 
consequence of the sin, it is man not God, who is the 
author of the sin. Thus it logically appears that we 
may safely say "God is the author of that evil " but we 
cannot say, He is "the author of sm," He creates evil to 
punish and restrain sin. He says of Himself in Isaiah xlv, 
7. "I form the light and I create darkness : I make peace 
and I create eviV 

^^ Shall there be evil in the city and the Lord hath not 
done it^'' Amos iii, 6. 



22*7 

It is man's acts and not God's, that perpetuate evil in 
the present world. Man by his sin against God's laws, 
both in nature and in religion, is therefore responsible, 
and not God, for the sin and the evil which follow. 

Let him cease from siniuiig, and God will cease from 
inflicting evil upon him. This benign end will yet be 
attained in the coming future. Let it not be said then 
that God should not have permitted Adam to be tempted, 
but should have made sin impossible, 

Have these wise optimists gravely considered what 
would have been the consequences to Adam, and to 
themselves, his posterity, had their plan been adopted? 

The first human pair, our primeval ancestors, being 
made incapable of sinning, would have been also ignorant 
and without experience of good and evil. They would 
have been equally unaquainted with right or wrong. 
Like the sagacious beasts of the field and the fowls of 
the air, they would have enjoyed that simple, inert 
objectless existence, which plants and animals derive, at 
this day, from the air they breathe, the food they eat, 
the water they drink, the exercise that keeps them in 
health, and the rest and comfort that come from the 
gratification of merely physical, animal instincts. They 
would have differed from the inferior animals of crea- 
tion, chiefly in their physical form and shape, ignorant 
alike of virtue and of vice, of the worth of wisdom, the 
pleasures of knowledge — the causes of evil — the uses of 
adversity; destitute of all knowledge of good and evil, 



man would never have advanced beyond primeval help- 
lessness. 

He would have remained entirely void of character 
and of intelligence. Without the formative principle of 
knowledge — without the discipline of experience — with- 
out the inspiration of hope — being wholly negative in his 
nature, whatever fires of genius or of virtue might have 
slumbered undeveloped in his constitution, he must have 
continued forever under the dominion of blind instinct^ 
and been always in abeyance of what might have been 
his better destiny. 

Yet despite these obvious facts and conclusions, our 
critics assuming- to be philosophers, have flippantly ques- 
tioned the Divine Wisdom, and demand with an air of 
superior sagacity, why man was not made "incapable of 
sin and without experience of evil?" 

Let us survey the scene for a moment, which on such a 
hypothesis, the human race and world would have pre- 
sented. Education, science, art, literature would have 
been unknown. The car of human progress and improve- 
ment would not indeed have been checked in its career, 
for it would never have been set in motion. Noah would 
never have built the ark, nor Solomon the temple. Ar- 
chimedes would never have asked for the fulcrum to 
overturn the world. The youthful conqueror, Alexander 
the Great, would never have wept so bitterly, that he 
had not another world to conquer. Homer would never 
have written the poem, which made seven cities contend 
for the honor of his birth. Diogenes would never have 



229 



been known by Lis Tub, for no cooper could have been 
been found to construct such a residence for the eccen- 
tric philosopher. Columbus would never have dis- 
covered America, nor Bacon invented gunpowder, nor 
that other Bacon (Yeralam,) have taught us philos- 
ophy, nor Newton shown us the principles of sci. 
ence, nor Lai Place given us his Mechanique celeste 
to reveal to us the starry heavens. 

Steam would have been unknown — gold without value 
— printing and photography among the undiscovered arts 
— the telegraph impossible, and the telephone incredible. 

History would have yielded us no chronicles; and the 
great names of our race, from Nimrod and Nebuchadnez- 
zar to Washington and Napoleon, would have perished. 
Society would have been a vapid inanity, and the world 
a trackless wilderness. With the knowledge and expe- 
rience acquired by the fall, we may boldly declare, that 
on such a basis of creation, human responsibility and 
human progress and development would h^ve been alike 
impossible. Creation itself, with all its teeming wonders 
would have remained to us a puzzle and a blank — and 
Man have been the monarch of a grand, void, vast chaos* 
That such is not our present unhappy lot we owe to the 
Divine Benevolence in wisely over-ruling sin and evil in 
their consequences, and in arranging the system as it is, 
giving man full liberty and free agency, by which he 
acquires experience of good and evil, is subjected to trial 
and is enabled thereby to form a character worthy of the 
Divine praise, so that those of his race who may have 



S30 

stood the test of loyalty and been approved, by choosing 
the good and refusing the evil, may be ultimately exal- 
ted to the Divine nature. 

If the critics wish to see a world created and governed 
on their theory of "no sin and no evil," let them behold 
the floral, plant, and animal kingdom. Are they not 
devised and arranged on that theory? Are they not 
innocent of sin and ignorant of evil? Would our fas- 
tidious critics change places with them? Would they 
prefer to be "like dumb cattle, driven" by instinct, rather 
than to walk voluntarily by the light of reason, experi- 
ence and revelation? We hardly think so, in view of 
what has been already submitted. 

To make our answer even more conclusive, we add 
another reflection. The inherent eternity of future life 
to all men being out of the question, it is safe to maintain 
from the testimony of human experience and observation, 
that under the existing cosmos, human life is in itself a 
blessing, and not an evil. Man gains by his creation a 
joyful life, although born and living under the constitu- 
tion of sin, and subject to the evils that follow. 

Surveying the whole creation, and human existence in 
the present life, we see that men as a general rule, enjoy 
more than they suffer. Enjoyment is the rule aud suffering 
the exception. Hence, we logically accept the conclusion, 
that it was wisest and best in the Great Architect, seeing 
the end from the beginning, to create man, and to subject 
the race to trial and to the consequences of the fall. 
Such an arrangement, when consummated and in its end 



231 

displayed, will be found to reflect the glory of Grod, and 
the good of man. Doubtless it was in view of this grand 
consummation, that amid the multitude of the Heavenly 
host, who crowded the gallery of the heavens, and beheld 
the creation scene, the Cherubim and Seraphim veiled 
their faces in adoring admiration, "the morning stars 
sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy." 

By this wise and gracious plan — comprehensively 
revealed to us as the means of recovery from the fall, in 
the Gospel of the Kingdom of God — the ways of God 
toward man will be justified — His laws will have been 
vindicated — mercy and judgment will have been harmon- 
ized — the Gospel of mercy, love and salvation, through 
its Author and Finisher — ^will have been triumphantly 
fulfilled in the exceeding great and precious promises — 
all nations will be blessed in Abraham and his seed, and 
in David's Royal Son and Heir — the (^hrist — the King- 
doms of this world, will have become the Kingdom of 
our Lord and His Anointed. Righteousness shall reign 
from sun to sun, and from the river to the ends of the 
earth — all wars and rumors of war shall cease — every 
curse, and all evil shall be ultimately removed from our 
renovated planet — there shall be peace on earth, and 
good will among men — and redeemed man, exalted to 
the dignity and glory of the Divine nature, will be in 
blissful friendship, peace and blessedness with his Maker 
and Redeemer forever. 



233 



SUPPLEMENT. 

PART 11. 



" Who is this uncircumcised Fhilistine that he should defy the 
armies of the living Godf" • 

I. Samuel ajm, 26. 

''Thinkest thou that lam altogether such an one us thy self P^ 

Psalm L. 21. 

'' Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil— that put 
darkness for light and light for darJc7iess — that put bitter for 
sweet and stceetfor bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their 
own eyes and prudent in their own sight. ''^ 

Isaiah v. 20. 



235 



SUPPLEMENT, PART II. 

It is not our intention to pursue Mr. Ingersoll through 
the devious and tortuous track of his labored assaults on 
the "Christian Religion," in the columns of the North 
American Review, nor is it by any means necessary to 
do so. We have already seen in the body of this work 
the small claim he can rightfully urge upon the confi- 
dence, or even the respect of the public, by any display 
of true knowledge or considerate reflection on the sub- 
ject on which he undertakes so presumptously and flip- 
pantly to lecture, to enlighten and to instruct mankind. 
This is abundantly shewn in the previous chapters, enti- 
tled, "Jfr. IngersolVs Ignorance of the Bible^'' page 31 — 
and his ''-Inconsistencei's,^'' page 34, to which the reader is 
referred. Since the publication of the first edition of 
this work he has, however, discovered and promulgated 
a new creed. Mr, Ingersoll is now the founder of two 
gospels. "The Religion of Humanity" was the substi- 
tute he first proposed for the Religion of the Bible. This 
he defined to be "good fellowship^good friends, etc." * 
f See page 25 ante. 



236 

This remedial system, however, was all confined to the 
present short and uncertain life, with no rainbow of 
promise — no hope of future blessedness — no heyond 
except an eternity of despair, or at best, of universal 
blank nothingness. Now however he has improved on 
this Gospel of Nihilism. At the little boy's grave in 
Washington, he says, as we have seen, "«^e too have a 
religion. It is help for the living ..and hope for the dead." 
Indeed! Has Mr. IngersoU been reading his Bible at 
last? Has he at length found or invented a new revela- 
tion? Is he become a Christian? "Is Saul also among 
the prophets ?" Has the Ethiopian changed his skin and 
the leopard his spots? "Help for the living,hope for the 
dead" is the Christian's creed. He will not deny that the 
Bible assures us that "Godliness is profitable unto al] 
things, having promise of the life that now is, and of 
that which is to come." Must we conclude then that in 
this last departure he has descended to plagiarism, and 
has stolen the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in?" 
When a disputant is self-stultified — when within the 
compass of a few revolving moons, he shifts his ground, 
changes his base, and contradicts his own deliberate 
utterances, he becomes, '-every thing by turns and noth- 
ing lo7tg^'' and we readily agree .with Shakespeare, "Let 
no such man be trusted." With no stable creed — with no 

fixed criterion of right and wrong — of truth and error 

of light and darkness, a jumble of negations — no wonder 
that Mr. Ingersoll's light of nature, his. boasted "torch 
of reason," his "Keligion of Humanity" should prove a 



237 

"shifting equation" — a vanishing quantity — and that he 
thus stands before us photographed in prophecy, as the 
shallow pretender who puts "good for evil, darkness for 
light, bitter for sweet, etc., one who is only wise in his 
own eyes and prudent in his own sight," Such a man is 
self-condemned. 

Mr. Ingersoll and his admirers write and speak of him 
as if his bitter assaults on the Bible faith were damaging 
and would ultimately overturn it. Vain hope! Arrogant 
presumption! It is quite probable that neither he nor 
they ever read the words of Jesus, "I receive not testi- 
mony from man," "There is one that beareth witness of 
me whom ye know not and his testimony is true." "The 
Father hath not left me alone. It is my Father that 
honoreth me, yet ye have not known Him but I know 
Him, and if I should say I know him not, I should be a 
liar like unto you; but I know Him, and I keep His sayina^s. 
Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the 
truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God 
heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because 
ye are not of God." "On this rock I build my Church 
and the gates of hell (the power of the grave) shall not 
prevail against it," because by the Hesurrection, which 
is the power of God, the Saints shall be redeemed from 
the gates of hell — i. e., the grave, or death-state. 



Surveying the remains of Mr. Ingersoll's sand-bag bat- 



238 

tery, after tlie damaging breaches made in it by Judge 
Black's artillery, we have left only the crippled guns of 
human slavery and polygamy, to keep up a straggling, fee- 
ble fire against the Bible. It is an easy task to silence 
these, once for all, for it must strike the intelligent reader 
with surprise, thai in Mr. Ingersoll's formal attack on "2%e 
Christian Religion^'' which is the special topic of debate 
in the Review, he should parade the bygone customs and 
social habits of another people of time long bygone and 
of an obsolete system in the Mosaic age, and charge these, 
even, if admitted to be well founded, as objections to that 
system, as valid arguments against Christianity, which 
any one knows, condemns and discards both practices. 
Surely a tyro in logic and law should know that you 
cannot convict A of a crime, by proving that B com- 
mitted it. But as the Bible student is affluent of resour- 
ces in defense of the truth, we do not care that the assail- 
ant shall escape on a special plea however little conclu- 
sive. Polygamy and human slavery were not commanded 
or approved by the Law of Moses. The first is recorded 
in the Mosaic history as a practice among the early patri- 
archs which descended to their successors, and was fol- 
lowed by Abraham and some of his descendants, but it 
was never commanded or approved by the God of the 
Bible. In the beginning God made one woman to be the 
help-meet and companion of one man — Adam and Eve 
were man and wife. Never by Divine authority was 
this law of society changed or repealed. On the con- 
trary, polygamy was discountenanced from the beginning. 



289 

In Solomon's case it was expressly condemned, the 
Bible History testifying that "King Solomon loved many 
strange women besides his wife, who was Pharaoh's 
daughter. He had seven hundred wives, who turned 
away his heart from God, "and the Lord was angry with 
Solomon." I Kings xi. 

In the very words of the Founder of the Christian 
Faith, and in the uniform teachings of his Apostles, the 
law of monogamy is expressly enjoined. In the memor 
able interview with the Pharisees, recorded in Matt, xix, 
• — referred to on page 36 ante^ the Master denied any 
Divine authority for polygamy, referring to the creation 
of a single pair "in the beginning," and calling "the twain 
one flesh." 

As to the remaining charge of human servitude among 
the Jews, for it is wrong to call it slavery, in the modern 
sense of the term, it was in its original institution, purely 
a mutual and voluntary contract between the parties — 
a mutual benefit arrangement, enduring first for a period 
of seven years, and renewable afterward by mutual con- 
sent for a longer period. It rested on the basis of what 
is, to this day known and legalized by the most humane 
and enlightened nations, as the contract or apprentice 
system, the common law-term of seven years in England 
and a shorter term in the United States, being derived 
and adopted from the law of Moses. It was in pursu- 
ance of this system among the Jews, that Jacob served 
Laban by contract two terms of seven years each, for his 



240 

wives Leah and Rachel. See Leviticus xxv, 39-43. Jer- 
emiah xxxiv, 13-16. 

It was a wise and benign system. That it may have 
been perverted and abused by bad men among the Jews 
— like the apprentice system with us — is quite true, for a 
law depending upon man's obedience, has seldom been per- 
fectly executed. The system however was entirely free 
from the just objections to modern slavery. There was 
no involuntary life-service feature in it nor any heredi- 
tary principle binding on the posterity of the enslaved^ 
On the contrary, every seventh year was the year of 
release, and in the years of jubilee, all were absolutely 
redeemed and released, whether the contract term had 
expired or not. Such is tha little mole-hill on which Mr. 
Ingersoll, pandering to well-known popular prejudices, 
artfully attempts to throw up a huge mountain of 
reproach and hostility to the Bible. 



In the Christendom of the present day the multiplication 
of religious sects is an ever-increasing evil. Extremes 
perpetually beget each other. The various religious 
denominations are built on and animated by the spirit of 
rival antagonisms. Instead of the one Body — (Church) 
— one Spirit, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one 
Hope and the one God the Father of all — a Divine 
Unity which Christ commanded and the j^postles wisely 
ordained and established in the beginning, (John xviia 



241 

^0-23, Ephesians iv. 3-7,) and the departure from 
which, as we read iu I Corinthians I, 10-15 — Paul 
sternly rebuked, we have now many Churches, many 
Spirits, "Lords many and Gods many," so that we closely 
resemble the idolatrous Athenians, to whom St. Paul 
preached. Acts xvii. Our Gentile cities boast almost 
as many altars and temples as the metropolis of Ancient 
Greece and it is only necessrry to converse, with the 
various worshippers to learn that they too bow at the 
shrine of an "Unknown God." 

It is undeniable, that such anti-scriptural divisions 
afford occasion for much of the reproach and scandal 
with which infidel assailants are ever ready to cover the 
Christian name and profession. These assail mts never 
stop to enquire whether all this discord is justly charge- 
able to Christianity itself, and not rather to these per- 
versions and departures from it. Thus the cause of 
truth is made in the mistaken public opinion, to bear a 
burden which does not belong to it. Recent religious 
statistics derived from the best sources, in all nations, 
show that there are more than one thousand religions in 
the world, each one separate, distinctive and antagonis- 
tic to the other! These things ought not so to be. On 
the contrary, we should be attracted by the true, and 
repelled by the false in religion. How shall this be done, 
in a state of things, in which the truth to attract is not 
to be found, but only error to repel? The sole remedy 
for the evil is to be found in the words of the Great 
Teacher: "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me" — 



242 

"Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith 
the Lord and I will receive you and I will be to you a 
Father and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the 
Lord Almighty." 

The Great Teacher commanded His Disciples to 
"begin at Jerusalem." We can heed the same wise 
example, and by sitting at the feet of these Jerusalem 
teachers we can learn the way of truth and salvation, 
which they taught and preached. Acts i. x. 

The shallowness and folly of infidel opposition to the 
Bible becomes very conspicuous when we pause and 
reflect on the absolute necessity of a revelation of God 
to man. 

We know by the experience of our race, that while 
man by the exercise of those faculties which his Creator 
has bestowed upon him, may master the secrets of many 
arts and sciences, which minister to his safety and hap- 
piness, and continually add to the sum of human knowl- 
edge, there are other sources of learning and instruction 
which elude his grasp because they are beyond and above 
the reach of his finite faculties. To the discovery of 
these, man's mental powers are wholly inadequate. 

The science of numbers, of the laws of health, of 
physiology, anatomy, chemistry, astronomy, geology, 
etc., are all within man's capacity to learn and compre- 
hend, therefore, we require no revelation to teach them 
to us and hence as to them the Bible is silent, for revela- 
tion would be superfluous and unnecessary. There is, 
however, another field of enquiry — another class of ideas 



243 

as to whicli man feels the strongest desire to Imow, 
while his limited capacities and his finite faculties are 
unable to grasp them. 

It is the thougthful observation of Lord Macaulay that 
"As to the question what becomes of man after death, we 
do not see that a highly educated European, left to his 
unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a 
Black-foot Indian. Not a single one of the many 
sciences in which we surpass the Black-foot Indians 
throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after 
the animal life is extinct. In truth, aU the philosophers, 
ancient and modern, who have attempted, without the 
help of revelation, to prove the immortality of man, from 
Plato down to Franklin, appear to us to have failed 
deplorably." Essays, p. 402. 

Thus we see that such questions as those proposed by 
•thoughtful men of all ages: ^*If a man die shall he live 
again?" "What shall come to pass hereafter?" "What 
shall be in the latter days?" "What shall I do to be 
saved?" "What is life?" "What is death?" and "How 
we may gain immortality," these are all incapable of 
answers either by scholastic theoloajy, or by natural reli- 
gion, and are soluble only by a direct revelation from 
God Himself? 

How Supremely unwise then the self-styled savans 
philosophers and theologians to seek answers from Soc- 
rates and Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus to whom no eiv- 



244 



elation of such secrets l.as ever been made, and to turn 
away from Moses and the prophets — Christ and the 
Apostles — to whom their solution has been confided for 
our especial information, instruction and guidance. 

Such is the broad and striking contrast between the 
folly and vanity of man even at his best estate and the 
wisdom and knowledge that come from God only. 



But it seems useless to pursue our task further. Mr. 
Ingersoll unhappily belongs to that class of critics and 
carpers who remain ignorant, despite the knowledge 
freely offered them, who never change, even from dark- 
ness to light, lest that change should involve an impeach- 
ment of their own supreme wisdom. Hence the proverb: 
"There are none so blind as those who will not see." 
Nevertheless the word of God stands sure, having this 
foundation, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." 

The Great Dispenser of events, the future Ruler of 
the earth, and Governor of the nations, thro' His appoin- 
ted Yice-Gerent, who will come from His right hand on 
that exalted mission, hath delivered to us that solemn 
message of truth and warning, addressed to all men by 
the mouth of His servant David, the sweet Psalmist of 
Israel. We subjoin this Royal proclamation recorded 
in Psalm xlix. It is a fitting sequel to our work. Let 



245 



the reader heed these words of the Supreme Wisdom 
and Authority. 



"Hear this, all ye people; give ear all ye inhabitants 
of the world; both high and low; rich and poor together: 
My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and the meditation of 
my heart shall be of understanding. * * * 

* * They that trust in their wealth, and 
boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none 
of them can by any means redeem his brother, or give to 
God a ransom for him; that he should still live forever 
and not see corruption (for the redemption of their soul 
is precious and it ceaseth forever). For He seeth that 
wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person 
perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inward 
thought is that their houses shall continue forever and 
their dwelling-places to all generations; They call their 
lands after their own names. Nevertheless man, being 
in honor abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. 
This, their way is their folly, yet their posterity approve 
their sayings. Selah. 

Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed 
on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them 
in the morning, (of the resurrection), and their beauty 
shall consume in their grave from their dwelling. But 



246 



God will redeem my soul (life) from the power of the 
grave; (saith David) for He shall receive me. Selah. 

Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the 
glory of his house is increased; for when he dieth he 
shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend 
after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul 
(and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thy- 
self) — He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they 
shall never see light. 

Man that is in honor and understandeth not, is like the 
beasts that perish." 



THE END. 



THE BIBLE DEFENDED AND ATHEISM REBUKED. 



REPLY 

TO 

Rob.ertG.Ingersoll's Lectures, 

"MISTAKES OF MOSES," "SKULLS," ETC. 
" l\'HAT MUST WE DO TO BE SA VED?" ETC. 



BY 



Allan B. Magruder, 



Layman and Bible Student. 



SECOND EDITION, 

With Supplement and Strietures on the IngersoU-Black Discussion.- 
Shewing the Bible Doctrine of 

LIFE, DEATH AND IMMOETALITY. 



! "May we know what this new doctrin-s whereof thou speakest, is' 
For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears; we would 
know therefore what these things mean." — Acts -vvi?', 20. 



CHICAGO ; 
C. H. JONES, Publisher. 

1882, 

Copyright Seczired. 

50 <z:^':ei^^'^. 



BD-17 















.^'\ 





"^o^ 



'bV^ 



















o 








4.^ -^^ 








: ^<^'\ • 








%/ 



* '^r *^ •©lis* <S> "% Vh/m^* a "^ 






<^. A 



-o^^^'- 













: iP-n*., -: 









